My Fantasy is My Reality
by Araidel
Summary: After a long string of failed relationships, Blaine literally bumps into the man of his dreams on the street. And promptly loses him when they walk off as if nothing has happened. Like Blaine's entire world hasn't been knocked off its axis. All he wants to do is find his perfect man again; to find the man he knows he's been looking for forever. My BBB fic, with art by winsomela
1. Act One

_Author's Note: This is my entry to this year's Blaine Big Bang. I want to give huge thanks to idoltina and hummingbird-heart for being my betas, putting up with the British idioms that I didn't even realise were British and for being absolutely amazing all round. And a massive thank you to winsomela who drew me the most beautiful art. I'm so grateful that she chose to illustrate my story- Femy's art is truly amazing. You can find the art from the link at the end of the story, or by the masterpost on my LJ sundayrainbows._

_Alternatively, this story can be read at my LJ (under sundayrainbows) or at A03 (under sundaysalvation)_

_This story is based on one of my favourite films Love and Other Disasters._

* * *

**My Fantasy is My Reality**

**Act One**

_"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."_  
_― Eleanor Roosevelt_

* * *

The carpet was threadbare in patches and the pattern was so familiar, swirling, swirling and hypnotically attracting Blaine's attention entirely. He could barely put one foot in front of the other, dragging his lethargic body up the five flights of stairs to the small New York apartment that he shared with his friend, the one he had called home for the past few years. His curls were windswept, an unusual appearance for Blaine, but he hadn't had his gel the night before to tame the unruly curls and he hardly needed to keep a stash of hair products at his now ex-boyfriend's apartment.

He wanted nothing more than to fall face first onto the soft covers of his bed, bury his face in his pillow, and cocoon himself in the covers until he either underwent the chrysalis to emerge a butterfly or his hunger took hold of his limbs and got him to move.

Yet another relationship failed. Blaine rubbed his temple, slowly closing the ground that still lay between him and his apartment, feeling the residual chill of the March morning on his skin. He was hardly past his prime, being twenty-four and still fresh-faced like his Nana had said the last time he'd visited Ohio. However, with each ended relationship, Blaine felt his childhood dream slipping further and further away. A fantasy made up of a perfect man, a house in the suburbs, children's bikes thrown haphazardly on the front lawn. Where once he held on to that fantasy with a vice-like grip, Blaine felt as if he barely clasped it with his fingertips now.

He crossed the fourth floor landing and stopped at the bottom of the next flight of stairs for just a moment. The carpet was especially threadbare here because of the two children who lived in the apartment right next to the stairs. They would sit on the stairs and play, blocking the way down for all the upstairs tenants. Blaine had had to jump over the lively children many a time when rushing because he'd overslept and was late for rehearsals.

They weren't playing on the stairs now. The rational voice inside Blaine's head commented on the fact that it was before nine on a Saturday morning so of course the children wouldn't be there. Yet the overpowering voice of Blaine's heartbreak informed him that at least seeing those happy faces, laughing loudly as this doll saved the day against that evil burglar, would have lifted his sunken spirits somewhat.

Instead, he trudged up the final flight of stairs and crossed the entire length of the landing to stand in front of his door. He dug around in the pocket of his jacket, wrapped tightly around his torso against the cold wind that was blowing outside, making the new spring leaves rustle and goosebumps rise wherever the wind touched Blaine's skin. He tugged his keys out of the pocket, not caring that they might catch and snag against a loose thread and opened the door.

The TV was on in the living room. Blaine could see the light illuminating the couch, the flickering images across the screen and could hear the low hum of voices coming from whatever Blaine's best friend and roommate was watching. Tina was still in grad school and liked to take over the living room on days that she was revising or writing a paper. She would have the TV playing something that wouldn't distract her too much while she spread her books on the coffee table and typed with her laptop balanced on her crossed legs. Blaine would sometimes join her if she was watching a good show, but most of the time he would let her stay in the zone she always found herself in while working.

He prayed she was in that zone today, one where she wouldn't immediately spot him and thus leaving him able to walk across the apartment and start work on his cocoon of blankets. It wouldn't take much planning or coordination and then he could settle into his cocoon and relive his latest broken down relationship time and time again.

Luck wasn't on his side, however. He made his way down the short corridor that led from the front door to the living room, and as he rounded the wall that hid the front door from the living room, Tina looked up from her books. She had a textbook open on her lap, one on the armrest of the couch right next to her and two more open on the coffee table. She had stuck a pen behind her ear and was holding a highlighter in her mouth, although she took hold of it to smile at Blaine as he shuffled further into the apartment.

"You were out late last night," she said in such an amicable tone that it tore through Blaine's gloom like daggers. He didn't want to hear joy or happiness; he just wanted to wallow in his eternal misery. "I thought you and Eli were planning on just spending the afternoon together."

Blaine didn't reply to that. They _had_ just been planning to spend the afternoon together, talking over the glaringly obvious problems in their relationship and to see if they could work a way around them. Blaine had gone into the conversation with hope. They liked each other, and they definitely could satisfy each other's sexual needs, so he had confidence that they could have worked things out. Yet there was no way to iron out any creases, ultimately leading him to trudging through his apartment and ignoring everything Tina was trying to say to him.

He reached his room and threw open the door, hearing the wood smack loudly against the plaster wall. His bedroom was dark; for some reason his curtains had been left closed, but Blaine was grateful for the blackness. The darkness suited his desire to wrap himself up in his blankets for years on end.

He had just kicked off his shoes and thrown his jacket onto the desk chair by his door when Tina walked in. She flicked the light switch on, making Blaine flinch away from the fluorescence. Her face was the picture of the concerned friend. Blaine hadn't even registered what she'd said to him and it was obvious she'd been trying to get his attention.

"Blaine, what's wrong?" she asked. While Blaine lay down on his bed, fully dressed and reaching out blindly for his pillow to bury his head beneath, Tina slowly approached and perched on the edge. The mattress sunk a little with the extra weight. She reached out and tugged on his sock-covered foot. "What happened?" she asked again.

Blaine couldn't ignore her. They had been friends for years, ever since Blaine had been forced to leave the sanctuary of his private school and go back to public school. Tina had been one of the first people to welcome the new boy into the senior class, and once the initial awkwardness of a new friendship was over, they had become firm friends. Tina had been by his side for all his heartbreaks, being a permanent pillar he could lean on. She also acted as his buffer from the ground after he plummeted from however high he built the relationship up in his head.

Although, recently, she'd been getting more and more impatient with Blaine's blank looks and dreamy sighs as he thought about whomever he was dating at the time. She had been especially vocal about Eli, spending many of the last three weeks pointing out the myriad of differences between the two of them. Of course she'd been right in the end, but he hardly wanted to hear her say 'I told you so' when what he really needed was his friend.

"What you wanted has finally happened," he murmured into the pillow. She made a questioning noise and he repeated himself, turning his head a little to the side to uncover his mouth and make his words just a little more audible.

"What did I want?" was her reply. Tina kept her voice low, like she could tell Blaine wanted nothing more than silence.

"Eli and I," Blaine replied after a moment. The birds were chirping happily outside, like they didn't care about Blaine's current emotional state, and Blaine took the time to listen to them before answering. "We're done."

"Oh, Blainey." Tina crawled across the bed to lie next to her friend, resting her head on the second pillow, the one Blaine hadn't pulled out of place. She slung an arm over Blaine's chest but when he didn't move into her embrace, she shuffled closer to hug him properly.

"I'm sorry." Tina still kept her voice low, barely audible over the singing of the birds outside. "I know how much you wanted it to work."

Blaine heaved a deep sigh. To anyone else, mourning the loss of a three week relationship with a guy Blaine hadn't known for very long before they started dating would seem implausible. It was nothing on the relationships that would break down after years of commitment, nothing like marriages that broke down for simple reasons like the spouses growing apart. In the grand scheme of love and relationships, Blaine's three week tryst with Eli could only just be classified as such.

Yet here he was, accepting his best friend's comfort and eternally grateful she wasn't uttering the dreaded words 'I told you so.' He felt his dream slip away even further, the clear picture he had once had of how he wanted his life to turn out was now blurred all the way from the edges to the center. It resembled a faded memory rather than the vibrant fantasy that had gotten Blaine through so many years in the past.

He hoped he could at least claw his way out of the pit of despairing emotion he was in right at that moment. A small optimistic part of his mind, one that Blaine was ignoring wholeheartedly, was repeating what it said in every situation like this. It was telling him that he'd be ok eventually, and that he'd find someone else. Someone else who'd be better than Eli ever was. Someone who may be Blaine's elusive true love.

Not that he was hearing the optimistic voice through his haze of despair and another relationship failing.

* * *

To put it bluntly, Blaine lived in his head. He was a fantasist. Ask any of his friends, family, or any ex-boyfriend who had gotten to know Blaine well enough. He'd had his picture perfect future in his mind's eye since he was in elementary school, eight years old and amidst a crowd of boys who still thought girls had cooties.

Admittedly, when he had been eight years old, his picture perfect future had involved the Presidency, fighting crime in a cape, and being married to whichever pop star he preferred that week.

When asked in class about what he wanted from the future, Blaine would always include having a house with a white picket fence, two dogs, three cats and a canary in his list of future desires. In art class he might draw what he wanted his future to look like as often as drawing a picture of his mom, dad and Cooper or drawing what the teacher asked him to.

His dreams matured as he did, morphing from superheroes and being the President to being a lawyer like his Dad and then a doctor like his Mom. The turning point in regards to his fantasy career was a family vacation to New York and Blaine's eye-opening trip to see _Chicago_ on Broadway. Blaine had been ten years old at the time and while he was a well-behaved little boy, as his Nana so fondly said when remembering the whirlwind that had been Cooper when he was still in single figures, Blaine had been expecting an evening filled with boredom and disinterest. Instead, it was like he had been looking through opaque glasses and now he was properly seeing the world for the first time in his life. He had sat up in his seat, watching the musical with rapture on his face and then had proceeded to force his Dad to buy him the soundtrack from the merchandise stand before they left the theater to go back to their hotel. They had driven from Ohio to New York that week and Blaine had insisted they listen to the soundtrack over and over again on the drive back.

So now his fantasy included him performing every evening on stage to a sold out theater crowd. He could picture the audience dressed in beautiful gowns and smart suits and imagined the standing ovation they would give every one of his performance, like the one he'd given the actors that bright day in his memory.

Up until Blaine was thirteen, he had been careful when talking about his fantasies for his future. He had known about his desire to have a _husband _waiting for him when he got home from work, as opposed being like Cooper wanting a wife and knew that most boys his age were looking at girls rather than the boys like he was. At thirteen, Blaine had cautiously admitted that he didn't want a girlfriend but a boyfriend, first coming out to Cooper while he held a brand new Playboy magazine in his hands that would be hurriedly handed back to his well-meaning older brother. Then he'd come out to his parents and while it had taken them a while, they slowly warmed to the idea that Blaine was picturing a two-man household in his future.

However, one event in Blaine's adolescence cemented the notion that he was a fantasist, serving as the perfect example of how dreams can block reality from view entirely. A few months after the disaster of the Sadie Hawkins dance, fifteen-year-old Blaine had met someone he'd fell for within minutes. Jeremiah had been someone Blaine could look up to, as Blaine saw himself in Jeremiah's position, out and proud, and Blaine's inevitable crush grew exponentially with each coffee date they had.

Valentine's Day came around and Blaine had wanted nothing more than to express his feelings towards the older boy, leading to a naïvely chosen a song to serenade his crush at work. He had pictured Jeremiah smiling a toothy grin, blushing from the intent, kissing Blaine as a thank you and walking out of the Gap hand in hand with his new boyfriend.

Of course the reality had been one hundred and eighty degrees from his fantasy. A resentful Jeremiah cut all contact with Blaine, who was left with a broken heart and his dreams of Jeremiah kissing him on the cheek when he arrived home from a successful show shattered.

When he first met Tina, she had laughed until her mascara ran and her sides ached at hearing the recount of the story. The 'Jeremiah Disaster', as she fondly called it, was still the source of Tina's most convincing arguments that Blaine built relationships up in his head far more often than actually reading the signs in front of him.

He would meet a man, get to know them well enough to want to date them, and soon his nightly dreams would involve Peter or James or Eli as the husband who would walk around their home with his top button undone and a lazy smile on their lips. Blaine would work harder than he needed to with the man in their relationship, insisting that the forced smiles were real and the slow withdrawing was nothing more than his insecurities. And then when the man would eventually end the relationship, Blaine would see his dreams splinter and his heart break.

Blaine was in a never-ending vicious circle where his relationships would succeed in the fantasy and spectacularly fail in reality. He would mistake countless situations, misread hundreds of signs, and make a whole mountain range out of a few tiny molehills. Tina was forever telling Blaine that if he wanted to find the man that would be in his dreams for good, he had to stop shoving anyone into the role and actually look in the real world.

And yet, despite it all, Blaine's perpetual living within his own imagination is, in fact, the way he met the love of his life: the man who did have the starring role in his picture perfect future.

* * *

A week and a half had passed since the door closed on Blaine's relationship with Eli. Tina had been nothing if not the perfect friend in the years since she and Blaine had grown close. Thus she was well equipped to yank Blaine from the depths of his despair after another shattered fantasy and propel him onto the path that would send him out looking again.

There had been many an evening where Tina had joined her friend in snuggling under the blankets and watching old teenage movies. She had nudged him whenever Andrew McCarthy came on screen in_ Pretty in Pink_, sighed with him over Freddie Prinze Junior in _She's All That_, and laughed raucously when they inevitably came full circle to watch _Not Another Teen Movie_. Tina had put on pot after pot of her mother's Chinese chicken soup recipe and shoved Blaine's favorite dishes under his nose every evening. She endured the trips to the mall that would inevitably lead them past a jewelry store and would link her arms through his to gently lead him away before he got misty eyed at the thought of proposing to the love of his life.

And then when the pampering to Blaine's romantic and emotional needs didn't work, Tina would decide that the approach with a proverbial slap around the face was needed.

That day, Blaine was due to be at rehearsals at midday. With three hours to go before he would be considered late, Tina burst into his bedroom and, in a swift, expertly practiced movement, pulled the covers away from his torso.

He sat bolt upright, having woken a good half hour before but enjoying the darkness that came from his cocoon of blankets. Blaine reached out, groping with both hands, to try and find the top of the covers and pull them over his head again but Tina just bundled them up at the end of his bed and waited, one hip cocked and one eyebrow raised.

"Tina, I've got ages until rehearsals," he finally said, his voice croaky with sleep. "Give me the blankets back."

Tina shook her head. "You are getting up, getting showered and coming to breakfast with me." She strode over to the window on the other side of the room and opened one of the brown curtains, bathing the dark room in sunlight. "Like you said, you have ages until rehearsals and I need you to help me decide where Mike and I should go on our date tomorrow night."

Mike was Tina's new boyfriend and Blaine's favorite for his friend by far. Not that Mike knew that: he was desperate to become close with his girlfriend's best friend, confronted with the situation that was stereotypical but true. A girl's male best friend was the most important person to impress as the new boyfriend, because if the best friend didn't like the boyfriend then there was little chance of the relationship going far. Thus every time Mike and Blaine were in the same room together, Mike would make sure to include Blaine in conversation, ask about his job or current relationship and try very hard and very obviously to get Blaine to like him.

He wouldn't let Mike know this just yet, but Blaine was already there. He liked Mike from the moment that he took off his thick winter coat and draped it around Tina's shoulders when the three of them were walking home from an off-Broadway play they'd attended together. Tina's jacket had been too light for the freezing evening and Mike hadn't even hesitated to give up his coat for his girlfriend. Blaine hadn't been dithering over whether he liked Tina's new boyfriend or not, but that had tipped the scale that moved Mike from merely the new boyfriend to one Blaine highly approved of and would consider a friend of his own in time.

Taking Tina's need for his advice into consideration, Blaine swung his legs off his mattress and began plodding across the warm fluffy rug that was underneath his bed and then onto the wooden floor that bordered his room. Tina took the opportunity to open the other curtain and then busied herself pulling Blaine's cover back into its rightful position on the bed, having been the one to displace it.

"Where does he want to take you this time?" Blaine asked, opening his closet and rummaging through the pants hanging up inside it. His gym bag that contained the clothes he wore to rehearsals was already packed and if he knew Tina and her habit of having long breakfasts, he'd have take the bag with him so he could go straight to rehearsals from the restaurant.

Tina settled on the remade bed. "To the same Chinese restaurant we always go to," she sighed. "I love Chinese food, I do. And of course China Town here is far better than the few Chinese restaurants we had in Lima, but sometimes I want to go for Italian. Or steak. Or even to a deli to have a salad-pasta combination thing. But not always dim-sum so frequently in the same place, they actually know our names when we arrive."

By the time Tina had finished telling Blaine all about her frustrations in regards to the current state of her relationship with Mike, Blaine had taken a pair of mustard yellow pants out of the closet and had stripped his night shirt off to pull a white polo over his head instead. "So you don't need me to help you decide where to go," he pointed out after he'd pulled his head through the neck and could look at his friend once more, "You've already chosen where not to go. That's half the choice."

"No, you aren't getting out of breakfast with me," Tina said, correctly seeing right through Blaine's statement to get to the root of what he was saying, "I need to you actually help me choose the restaurant."

She stood and came over to him, linking one of her arms through his and resting her head on his shoulder, looking up at him with big brown eyes. "And besides Blainey-days," Blaine couldn't help but smile at the old nickname, "you need to get out and see the world. See that there are still plenty of other men out there to take your mind off Eli. That's the thing that'll do you good."

* * *

Blaine hadn't exactly believed Tina when she'd dragged him from his bed claiming it was for Blaine's own good. Yet, it had actually worked.

Breakfast had been as long as Blaine had predicted, and he had been about as much help as he'd originally thought as well. There were times that Tina just needed someone to talk to, someone to show that they were listening as she talked her ideas out loud. Blaine had barely had to input any ideas of his own and had spent the meal sipping three cups of coffee and munching on the banana nut muffin that he favored. But he was in good company - the best company in fact - and the ambiance of a normal coffee shop had improved his spirits far more than brewing yet another pot in his kitchen would have.

By the time Tina had chosen the restaurant to take Mike to, Blaine had needed to rush off to make his rehearsals on time. She was taking Mike to a new Italian that had opened up in Little Italy and Tina had talked for a good half an hour about it's new reputation that was rapidly spreading through the city as a fantastic place to eat. Blaine had a mental image of the two of them, him and a new boyfriend going on a double date but he took a sip of his second coffee had those thoughts being washed away. He wasn't thinking like that.

_A Chorus Line_ was having a cast change within the next few weeks and Blaine had managed to win one of the leads. It was his first musical on Broadway where he'd have a lead role, despite being one of sixteen other leads, and he had a solo to go with his part. He'd been overjoyed, his friends had been overjoyed for him and then had laughed when he crawled home after an exhausting rehearsal. Now that they were a few weeks from opening night, rehearsal intensity hadn't let up.

Despite having spent the day dancing across the stage, performing pirouettes and box steps and leaping clear across the stage, once he'd left for the evening Blaine had chosen to ignore the burning need to shower in one of the cubicles backstage in favor of hurrying home and returning to his cocoon. After the gruelling afternoon, his spirits from the morning had sunk once more. There was a gentle wind that greeted him that hadn't been there in the morning as he walked out of the backstage door, making the ends of his clothes fly up and flap like they were copying Blaine's routine. Even with the thick cardigan he'd pulled on to protect him from the cool breeze, he could feel the difference between the air rushing over his skin and the wind against the sweat on his back and forehead, making him shiver from the cold.

He tugged at the ends of his cardigan, wrapping himself up a little better, and set off down the street, his gym bag swaying with his momentum and rhythmically banging against his thigh. Despite it being mid-afternoon, the street was remarkably devoid of pedestrians. Blaine was used to having to weave his way in and out of the crowds, bumping into people and pushing his way past others, just to get to the main street and head towards the closest station.

While today's empty street was a blessing, with no intricate game of dodging the other people to play, Blaine's mind fell back on the only thing that he seemed capable of thinking about lately. Where had it all gone wrong with Eli? He hadn't made the whole thing up, that was for certain. He and Eli had been on dates where they had held hands, kissed under the awning of Eli's apartment building, and met up for coffee and a late breakfast on days when they hadn't spent the night together.

Even through his frantic thoughts that flew between possible reasons that his latest relationship failed, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Tina was reminding him in forceful terms that he and Eli had absolutely nothing in common. He could admit that at least. Blaine was an actor, a performer whose vocational life goal came in two parts: to originate a role that went on to become a classic, and to star in an iconic role and be compared favorably to the man who originated it. Eli's goals were to successfully get someone off a charge that they obviously had been guilty of and to bench press over 200 pounds. And he hated the theater.

There was evidence staring at him in the face, written in fiery letters across the sky, but Blaine's eyes were downcast and his thoughts were fixed on what had been the final straw that had led him to agree with Eli that it just hadn't been working. Could he even remember the details of that night? It had ended with Blaine's legs draped over Eli's shoulders and both of them panting against the other's sweat-soaked skin, but the next morning he'd walked out of the apartment with no intention of calling Eli back. Blaine couldn't even put his finger on the deed that had put the final nail in the coffin.

With his eyes fixed on the paving stones beneath his feet and his mind stuck in the past, Blaine didn't watch where he was walking and didn't see the man hurrying in the opposite direction. They collided, Blaine's bag dropping to the ground like a stone and the papers and envelopes the man had been holding fluttering to the ground around them.

"I'm so sorry," Blaine immediately apologized, sinking to his knees to gather up the envelopes that had caught on the wind and fluttered closer to him. The man was also crouched down to pick up loose papers that had fallen out of an open manila envelope. He grasped the papers to his chest as he picked them up, trying without success to order them with one hand.

The man and Blaine rose at the same time. Blaine lifted his head while holding out the pile of the stranger's belongings he'd collected and the repeated apology he was about to say stuck in his throat. It was entirely possible that the world had stopped turning, keeping Blaine is that exact moment as he looked at the man before him.

This man was utterly breathtaking. It was like Blaine had been seeing mere mockeries of men before now and hadn't realized, like the wool had been lifted from his eyes and he was seeing clearly for the first time. He hadn't even realized he had a type before now, but the man standing before him was so perfect in every way that Blaine was convinced he had a type now.

His blue eyes were shining, with colors from every corner of the rainbow reflected in his eyes, a kaleidoscope of blues and greys and greens. His skin was flawless, pale like it hadn't ever spent a day in the sun and his cheeks were rosy from the cold wind blowing around them or from the exertion of his fast paced walking. His hair was a light brown, streaked with natural bronze and golden strands, and styled to stand up away from his forehead and curl back on itself towards the crown of his head. His lips were pale like his skin but still managed to be full, inviting and even glistening after the man licked them absentmindedly. Before his eyes, they curled up into a small smile that lit up his face and made Blaine's heart skip a beat.

"Thank you," he said, snapping Blaine out of his moment of admiration and bringing him sharply into the present situation. The man awkwardly juggled the papers in his arms to free up one hand. But merely hearing him speak sent Blaine soaring back to the cloud nine he'd been residing on, and Blaine returned to his appreciation of the man.

His voice was musical, high enough to be a rarity in a man and definitely something Blaine wanted to hear for the rest of his life. He had just come from a hot, stuffy room where the same people sang the same songs over and over again, and hearing this man speak could only be compared to the joy someone felt at listening to spring birds sing for the first time after a long winter.

His fall from cloud nine back to earth was abrupt once more as the man finally freed a hand and reached out to take the pile offered to him. Blaine blinked once, twice and just barely resisted shaking his head to clear the cloud of love in between his ears. He already felt two feet tall, with huge hands, curls that looked even more like a lion's mane than normal, and the sweat on his brow from rehearsal was suddenly so obvious it could be seen from Ohio. He didn't want to make himself look like even more of a bumbling fool.

Blaine helped maneuver the envelopes and open letters into the man's hand, willing fate to allow their hands to touch. He had never wanted to accidentally brush a man's hand before and his hopes plummeted to the earth when the dropped belongings were handed over without any touch at all.

"Again, I'm sorry for bumping into you," Blaine mumbled, wanting to drop his eyes with embarrassment at the fumbled words coming out of his mouth but at the same time never wanting to take his eyes off the man before him.

The man shook his head. "I apologize as well," he said instead. The humble admittance that maybe he had been in the wrong made Blaine's opinion of him reach a new height. The idea that this man could have bumped into Blaine, could have disturbed Blaine's walk home, rather than the other way around was ludicrous. In Blaine's mind, this beautiful man just became a selfless and shining example of humanity at its best.

The man then smiled again, his lips pressed tight together and moved around Blaine to carry on walking. Blaine wanted nothing more than to call out, to reach out to this man, find out his name, or if he was gay and single and interested in maybe going out for coffee with the ungainly oaf who had walked right into him. However, his muscles weren't listening to his brain screaming at them to move. His legs didn't want to turn, his hands merely twitched by his sides and his arms didn't fly out to tap the man on the shoulder.

When he eventually did turn around, the man was a step or two away. Far enough that if Blaine had reached out, he'd have been stretching and looking like an even bigger fool than he already saw himself as. A glimpse of something white caught Blaine's eye and he swooped down for the abandoned envelope.

His eyes took in the dark writing, the name and address written in typed font. His eyes only glanced at the front of the envelope briefly before flying up to find the man again and call out.  
Only once the man had turned around and looked curiously at Blaine again did he hold out the last envelope. Blaine's mind went into overdrive, clever pick-up lines disguised as simple sentences running through his brain, things that would make the man laugh and want to talk to Blaine for longer, maybe inviting him to the nearest coffee shop. It didn't matter that this was Broadway and therefore everything close to here would be expensive: Blaine would happily buy this man a coffee if he could spend more time with him. However, the connection between his mind and his mouth must have been loose and the only thing that came out of his mouth was, "Your letter."

"Oh." Again the man struggled to free a hand, nearly losing three sheets of paper covered with handwritten notes on them before giving up. He slowly let the large pile of papers fall a little away from his chest, creating a space for Blaine to slip the envelope in to. He looked up expectantly, smiling that same tight-lipped smile, and waited patiently.

Blaine took the hint and stepped forward, over his forgotten gym bag, to reach the man and slip the envelope on top of the great pile in his arms. Once again his brain screamed at his mouth to speak, to say anything witty or impressive to keep the man there, ordering his arms to reach out and indicate that Blaine could held with the load if the man liked.

But his motor skills failed him for a second time and the man turned to walk away. Blaine's eyes followed him as he walked, wanting to keep him in his sights for as long as possible now that speaking to him again was out of the question. Blaine took in the man's long legs and inevitable height he'd have over Blaine when they would be standing with scant inches between them. The pants he had on were a matte grey color and framed his ass, drawing Blaine's eyes like a beacon. The blue scarf that Blaine hadn't even noticed complimented the man's eyes flapped over his shoulder, waving goodbye to Blaine as the man walked away.

Heaving a deep sigh, Blaine finally picked up the bag lying dejectedly at his feet. He took the time to straighten the polyester strap and slide it comfortably onto his shoulder, face still turned towards the direction his perfect man had walked in, eyes still desperately searching through the growing crowd of people to find someone he knew he couldn't.

And when he turned to leave to continue on the journey he'd been on before being smacked out of his brooding over Eli, Blaine was forever grateful he had managed to discover the man's name from the addressed envelope. At least he could dream about him, and once his daydreams were over he might even be able to overcome to overwhelming odds against him look for the man he now wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

* * *

For the second time in as many weeks, Blaine walked into his apartment in a daze. His gym bag was dangling from his hand, brushing against the threadbare carpet of the hall outside. He abandoned it entirely once he'd closed the front door behind him. He just didn't have the desire to carry it across the apartment length right now. He dropped his keys into the small, shallow bowl Tina's mother had bought for the two of them without really looking at it, using the force of habit to know where to drop the keys so that they wouldn't clatter into the bottom of the glass dish.

Blaine looked over the long expanse of his apartment and started the trek to reach his bedroom. He really should have chosen the room closest to the door. He could have used the bedroom right by the front door more than ever now.

Tina wasn't sitting on the couch this time, although her veterinary coursework was spread out over the coffee table and the TV was muted. That meant she was either in her bedroom on the phone to Mike talking about their date the following evening or in the kitchen heating up some tea to give her enough energy to get through yet another night's study.

Blaine paused at the junction between the small hall to the front door and the living room, standing just to the left of Tina's closed door. He strained his ears, listening out for any movement or any sign of life coming from Tina's bedroom. For a few seconds he could only hear the wind rustling the leaves in the trees outside their apartment and his heartbeat. There was no sound coming from Tina's bedroom: no laughter, no pacing like she liked to do when on the phone, no squeak of bedsprings that told Blaine she had sat down to talk. The silence meant that his ever-loving and well-meaning but endlessly nosy best friend cum roommate was in the kitchen. The open-plan kitchen where, unless Blaine was very lucky and she had her back to the living room, Blaine would undoubtedly be spotted and interrogated for the reason to his so oft-repeated near-catatonic state.

He took a deep breath to steel himself, glancing over his shoulder to the gym bag by the front door. Even turning back for it could cost him precious moments that he couldn't afford to lose. Tina might be rummaging in the cupboards for a tray right now and as soon as she found what she needed, she'd be back in view and grab his attention. He just wanted to slip into his room, collapse face-first on his bed like he'd done two weeks ago and then wallow in the knowledge that he was likely never to see his perfect man again. He didn't want to rehash the encounter and have someone other than himself, someone he cared about and whose opinion he trusted more than anyone else's, tell him that he wasn't going to see the man again.

Blaine sent a quick prayer up to whichever god he didn't believe in who may or may not be listening in at the time, before stepping forward. At least the apartment building was new enough that there were no creaking floorboards in their apartment. That would be something straight out of a bad comedic movie.

He almost made it the entire way across the apartment and was within touching distance of his bedroom door when a voice rang out.

"Oh, Blaine - I was wondering when you were getting back." Tina said brightly, coming out of the kitchen holding a tray laden with a teapot, two mugs, a plate of cookies and a bowl filled with the Chinese sweets Tina's parents sent her every week. She smiled widely in his direction as she rounded the couch, set the tray on two open textbooks and retook her seat on the couch. Only then did she glance back at her friend and beckon for him to join her.

There was no chance of slipping away now, not after last time when she'd followed him into his bedroom to investigate his lack of response after his breakup with Eli. Blaine took the offered seat after he'd walked back to the front door and retrieved his gym bag, throwing it towards his bedroom and ignoring the loud thud it made when his shoes collided with the wooden doorframe.

Tina was pouring out two mugs of tea, the jasmine scent wafting in every direction and lulling Blaine into a sense of security. Did the man like herbal tea, or was his hot drink of choice a coffee? How Blaine would have loved to have known, then learned the best way to prepare whichever hot drink was the favorite option.

"So how were rehearsals then?" Tina asked through a mouthful of jasmine tea. She had finished pouring the cups while Blaine stared into space, lost in his own head, and had even slid the second mug and saucer across the glass table so Blaine didn't have to stretch to reach it. He picked it up, cradling the china in both hands and blew gently on the tea to stall in answering her question.

However, Tina just stared at him with those brown eyes that were so expressive and almost hypnotic in the way that she could extract information that she didn't even know she wanted. After the well-meaning breakfast in the morning and her insistence that there really were other fish in the sea for him, it seemed worse. It seemed like years and seconds since Blaine's brain had short-circuited after seeing the man of his dreams, although realistically it was half an hour at most. Surely he could keep the news from Tina for longer than thirty minutes, even with her hypnotic stare that normally dragged information without any resistance.

"They ran really late today," he said, speaking to the teacup rather than his friend. A scowl settled on his face as he remembered the disaster that had been rehearsal of the afternoon. Repeating the finale over and over and over again until three people had just given up and stormed out, loudly claiming that Cassandra July truly was the devil incarnate.

"Cassie had us practicing the finale over and over again," Blaine continued while Tina nodded to show that she was listening, even if it was with a vague interest that a friend has for something they know very little about, "For some reason, it didn't sit right with her and she treated it like we hadn't been learning it for the past few months."

"She just wants you to be good," Tina pointed out, popping a sweet into her mouth and chewing. Blaine shook his head when she offered him the bowl.

"Yeah, sure, but Cassandra July wants us to be one machine that moves and thinks just like her." He shook his head again, hearing the choreographer's continual shouts in his head as he recounted the day, "And that's not going to happen with the size of the cast we've got. You know how many parts _A Chorus Line_ has. How are we all supposed to be little Cassie Julys?"

The jasmine tea was still steaming, the smell wafting up across his nose and the steam making his cold skin tingle just a little. Glancing toward where Tina was watching him with a small smile on her lips, Blaine reached over to replace the mug on the saucer and then asked, "Did you speak to Mike about your date tomorrow?"

Her small smile turned into a large one and she nodded. "He was a little surprised when I immediately said no to our normal restaurant, but when I told him that I really did want to check this new place out, he was okay with it."

Blaine paused in his never-ending thoughts about how he had met his perfect man and would likely never see him again, taking the moment to really look at his friend. In the morning at breakfast, she'd been as happy as a child on Christmas morning even while complaining that Mike was taking her to the same restaurant, a date that was becoming stagnant and habitual. She had been determined to talk at Blaine as she brainstormed for an alternative place.

Even now hours later, she was so relaxed while talking about Mike and thinking about her new boyfriend. Blaine hadn't seen her like this for a while. She had been swamped with researching for a paper for the past few months and her relationships were as woeful as Blaine's during that time. Then Mike had come along and Tina had lit up like a Christmas tree.

"I'm so glad you're happy with him, Tina," Blaine commented after a few moments of companionable silence. She looked at him, shocked, and he realized that while he'd made it known that he liked Mike and supported the relationship, this must have been the first time he was actually telling his friend that he was _happy_ for her. He gestured towards the pile of books and papers surrounding her before continuing. "With all the time you put into your studying, you more than deserve to be so happy with someone."

Tina replaced her mug on the saucer, having picked it up to sip the jasmine tea thoughtfully only moments ago, and leaned closer to Blaine. She held out her arms, beckoning with her fingers. Blaine took the hint and followed her lead, sinking into Tina's arms while she hugged him, for her own sake as well as for his.

"So do you, Blainey," she murmured in his ear. "I know you're still upset over Eli, but when you find your real perfect man, he'll be more than you've ever dreamed."

As she spoke, Blaine's mind moved from the possibility of someone to the man he'd met today on the street. It was like he had stepped out of Blaine's dreams and into the complicated, never standing still, hectic world of Blaine's reality. As he hugged Tina to him, hearing her say that she would find his dream, his fantasy, Blaine wondered if he'd ever bump into the man again; focusing on the likely possibility that he worked around where Blaine had walked into him, rather than on the negative glass-half-empty view he'd had only a few minutes ago.

"Blaine?" Tina's voice broke through Blaine's reverie and brought him back to the present. She was trying to extract herself from Blaine's arms and he hurriedly let her go, sitting back against the comfortable cushions and then changing his mind to reach out and take hold of his mug again. The change of scent from passion fruit to jasmine again only made Blaine wonder what scents were hidden away in the products of his dream man's bathroom.

Tina's hand took hold of Blaine's knee and shook it ever so slightly, gaining his attention. "You want to tell me what's on your mind?" she asked, but before Blaine could reply, she continued, "Is it Eli again?"

Blaine shook his head. "Not Eli. I'm not really worried about him anymore." He tried to act nonchalant about it, saying that poignant phrase as if he were still talking about his afternoon's gruelling rehearsals.

"That's a change from earlier. Earlier this very morning, in fact." This time she nudged Blaine's knee with her sock-covered foot. "What happened to make you change your tune?"

Blaine's mind filled with the image of the man, his eyes locked with Blaine's own from underneath long lashes. Blue eyes, a delicate nose, lips that seemed to naturally smile, hair that was swept away from his face almost artistically. Blaine heard his voice in his head, that musical tone and way of speaking that he somehow recalled even after hearing only a few sentences. He saw the envelope, the last letter than he'd picked up, the one that had revealed his perfect man's name.

A smile grew on his lips as he thought and Blaine's entire posture relaxed in a way that he hadn't been in the past week. A posture that spoke volumes about how his mentality had taken a turn for the optimistic from the thoughts turning over in his mind that Eli was just another in a long list of failures and how he'd never find his dream, to thoughts that sang about the living fantasy he'd met earlier, drowning out the notion that he wouldn't meet his perfect man again.

"I, um," Blaine momentarily tried to avoid Tina's intense gaze but gave up and looked at his friend, seeing her growing excitement for him, "may have met someone just before I came home."

Tina gasped. "What? Oh my god, Blaine. Tell me everything." She leant towards him again and took hold of one of Blaine's hands in both of her own. "Where did you meet him?"

"We just met in the street." Blaine shrugged like it was a nonchalant memory but the smile that was still growing on his own lips was making it impossible to hide how blissful he felt reliving that moment. "He was walking in the opposite direction and we just bumped into each other. Tina, I can't even begin to explain, but everything I ever thought about love at first sight before now was proved completely wrong. I felt like I was seeing the man I've been looking for forever."

"That is so romantic Blaine," Tina whispered, as if keeping her voice serene might preserve some of the romance, "What's his name?"

"Sebastian Smythe." Blaine said as thought about that letter, with the name that would be engraved in his memory forever. "I think that's how you pronounce it."

Tina repeated the name of Blaine's perfect man, testing the name out for herself and then nodding in approval. When she spoke, her voice grew louder with excitement. "What's he like? Are you two going out on a date any time soon? And when do I get to meet him?"

"Well, you get to meet him right after I do."

Silence filled the apartment. If they were outside in a field, the crickets chirping would have been the loudest sound by far. Tina had been staring at Blaine with a love-struck expression on her face, swept up in the idea that Blaine had met someone new so quickly after his breakup and subsequent low emotions over Eli. And with Tina's disbelieving look, the voice that Blaine had squashed started shouting louder again, telling him that despite how happy he may have just been reliving the memory of meeting his perfect man, he was as likely to bump into Sebastian again as he was to be cast tomorrow as the next Tony in West Side Story. That negative voice that only this morning was whispering that Blaine wouldn't find his perfect man, resumed telling him in no uncertain terms that he would be better returning to his original plan to wallow in his cocoon of covers once more.

"You haven't met him yet?" Tina's face had hardened but she kept her grip on Blaine's hand, tightening it as her disbelief was voiced with a piercingly high tone, "What does that mean? How do you know his name if you haven't even met him properly?"

"It was on one of the envelopes he dropped. It was open and addressed to him." Inside his mind, that negative voice was shouting again for him to give it up, but the eternal optimist, that same optimistic streak that kept dreaming of his ultimate fantasy, was arguing back. "Look, Tay-tay," he said, adding the old nickname he and Tina used so often in their senior year, "I know you don't understand, but I really feel like he's the one. The man I've been waiting for and dreaming about my whole life."

It took a while for Tina to reply, staring at her friend with unblinking, judging eyes. When she did finally speak, her tone wasn't incredulous. It was sarcastic, and she accompanied her words with a sigh. "Of course he is."

Tina's sarcasm didn't matter. Blaine knew how he felt, and the feeling in his whole body was that he'd had that moment of realization that that man was_ the one_. Tina hadn't agreed, but she'd just have a funny anecdote to talk about in her best woman's speech and Blaine's wedding to Sebastian Smythe.

* * *

One of Tina and Blaine's friends from when they had gone exploring together in New York after Tina first moved to the city was an aspiring chef just like her mother. Marley's mom had been a chef in a prestigious restaurant that had closed in the January of the previous year due to a severe lack of patrons after they had been slated in a review by a particularly harsh critic. Milly Rose, Marley's mom, hadn't been the chef on duty that day, so when the word got out that the renowned Milly Rose was opening her own restaurant with her daughter, the excitement that rose through patrons of the old restaurant was infectious.

Blaine and Tina had received their invites to the grand opening of _Rose_, the new all-day restaurant that was the talk of the town. Mike was unavailable that evening – he had gotten word that his expertise was needed immediately to fix a problem with the understudies in the musical he was working on – so Tina had linked her arm in Blaine's and had demanded he take her as his date.

"You can't turn up to a restaurant opening without a date on your arm. We'll have to be each other's," she argued, slipping in her chosen earrings for the evening while she stood in Blaine's open doorway. "Plus, it'll be good for you. It'll take your mind off Sebastian."

Blaine's response had been to shake his head. He had been staring at Tina from the mirror while he'd tried to fix his red bow tie and then decided that he was far too uncoordinated that evening. Sebastian Smythe with his perfect eyes, inviting lips and flattering clothes had been the only thing on Blaine's mind since they'd met. He hadn't spoken of him much, but his dreams during the night and day had featured the man.

Tina knew her friend and had taken to doing precisely what Blaine had wanted to avoid. She would periodically slip into conversation that Blaine should start going back out with one of his friends from NYU and Tisch that he hadn't quite lost contact with, or maybe he should to come with her out for drinks with a few of her post-grad friends. Subtlety had never been her strong suit, so when the periodical hints that Blaine should start to look for someone else failed to spur her friend into action, Tina would comment that she didn't really think it was healthy for Blaine to be so fixated on someone he hadn't really met.

"I know you're forever living in your head with your dreams," Tina would say over dinner, or over a commercial while they sat together to watch something on TV, "but you will never have that fantasy of yours come true unless you find someone real. And," she would add to preempt Blaine's retort, "not someone who is real but who you just met for a second."

So Blaine kept silent at Tina's frankly correct assessment that attending Marley's restaurant opening with Tina as his date would get his mind off his newly begun single state and the man of his dreams slipping away like a leaf in a gale.

When Tina and Blaine finally arrived outside _Rose_, they smiled with pride at the restaurant. There was a small line of customers outside but no one looked impatient or angry at being kept waiting. The outside of the restaurant was beautiful and simplistic, with large windows that revealed the inside, black faux-wooden window panes and the name written in silver calligraphy on the awning over the door.

They walked straight past the line of people without glancing at it and through the door, hearing the chatter of the customers as they enjoyed their food and seeing the room they had watched being built from an empty shell now full to bursting. Blaine's smile grew slowly as he took in the restaurant. He'd seen it before of course, as he had been one of the people Marley had sought approval from. However, there was something about seeing Marley's dream come to life that gave him hope. Not just that this would succeed for his friend but a small part, a selfish part, thought about how _his_ dream may come true.

Sebastian's face flitted in his mind's eye again and he focused on that so much so that he missed Tina dragging him further into the restaurant toward the table set for four at the back.  
One person sat there already and she stood, threw out her arms wide to embrace both Tina and Blaine when she saw who had arrived. Unique was Marley's best friend, as old a friend to Marley as Tina was to Blaine, and the four of them had become close together.

She was a tall woman, curvaceous and beautiful and had a personality that was loud and hard to dislike. She was dressed in a red dress complete with flowing sleeves, a black thick belt around her waist and heels that made her tower over Blaine, although she could tower over him with ease even in flat shoes. Unique was one of those people who just dressed fantastically, knowing exactly which colors to pick out and which cuts would flatter her shape. Her talent for personal fashion brought Sebastian into Blaine's mind again, with his oh so skinny pants and bright colored shirt that looked so flattering and on-trend that Blaine knew Sebastian was just like Unique in regards to fashion.

"Hey, Earth to Blaine." Unique's voice broke through Blaine's thoughts. He shook his head to clear away the mist to see Tina and Unique staring at him, evidently having already tried and failed to get his attention before.

"Sorry," Blaine said, and shook his head again. "How are you, Unique?"

"Oh, Blaine, I just so happy for Marley." Unique's smile was infectious, and had both Blaine and Tina smiling in response. "My girl has done so well and she deserves it entirely."

The three took their seats at the table, Tina pausing before sitting down to shrug her cardigan off her shoulders and hang it on the back of the comfortable beige faux-leather armchair. The fourth seat stayed empty but Blaine could guess who it was for: Marley's new boyfriend Jake, who had met both Unique and Tina before tonight but who would be introduced to Blaine for the first time. They'd been meeting for the afternoon and after the long day of rehearsals he'd forced his way through, Blaine hadn't been able to leave work early enough to make the journey from the dance studio to Central Park to join his friends.

One of the many servers showed up at their table a few minutes later, holding his small notebook and a pen in readiness. "Can I get you anything?" he asked, dreadlocks falling around his shoulders.

Tina hurriedly opened her menu to see if there was a drink she wanted but Unique held a hand out to indicate the empty chair next to her. "We're still waiting on somebody," she said, and their server nodded before leaving to attend to another table.

Unique looked back at Tina to continue their conversation about her studies but Tina's eyes were fixed on the menu, a tender expression on her face. The menu had been the only thing Marley had kept a secret, feeding them a few dishes she wasn't too sure about but keeping the majority close to her heart.

"There's my chicken soup here," Tina commented in a voice that was filled with emotion. Blaine and Unique followed suit to look over the menu and sure enough, 'Tina's Chicken and Lokshen Soup' was one of the featured appetizers. Listed in the entrées was a chicken, cream cheese and herb dish that Unique loved to cook whenever they visited her apartment for dinner. Blaine's eyes fell on the desserts and discovered a chocolate and coffee cheesecake that he knew was selected for the menu because of him.

"She's put her soul into this place," Blaine commented, pride and affection for his friend swelling again. Marley had hinted that she wanted her friends to be a part of her dream, friends that meant the world to her. Writers would dedicate a book to people they cared about, actors would thank their closest friends and influences in award acceptance speeches. But Blaine felt having a dish inspired by him on the menu in the most anticipated restaurant of the year topped any of those.

"My girl certainly knows a thing or two about making us cry," Unique said, and Blaine glanced up to see unshed tears in her eyes. He reached out to grab her hand, but Unique pulled away to fetch a tissue from her purse, dabbing expertly under her lashes to stop any mascara from running.

To lighten the mood after all three had felt a surge of affection for their friend, Blaine asked, "So tell me about Jake."

Immediately, Unique and Tina exchanged a conspiratorial look. Unique was the one to lean forward and let Blaine in on the secret. "She has made such a good choice this time. He's a sweetheart and so good for her, but that boy of hers is one fine piece of man." Tina was nodding fervently from beside her. "He's not exactly your type, but Tina and I certainly appreciate-"

She stopped speaking and sat upright like something had shocked her, smiling to someone over Blaine's shoulder. As if summoned by Unique's words, someone was walking up to the table and Unique quickly stood to greet him with a friendly hug. The laugh that rang out when she hugged him betrayed nothing about how she'd been singing praises for his physique to two people, one of whom who had yet to meet him.

He turned around to see the man he presumed was Jake, and smiled a warm smile at Marley's new boyfriend. While Blaine had met some of Marley's previous boyfriends, he hadn't gotten to know any of them well. They had been nice enough, and had left their mark as any relationship did on a person, but none of Marley's exes were much to write home about. Jake, on the other hand, was as tall as Unique, his hair cut close to his head and was wearing an open plaid shirt with a plain grey T-shirt underneath. He carried himself differently compared to Marley's exes, tall and proud, and while Blaine couldn't really judge as he was just looking at one half of the couple, he got the feeling that Marley and Jake would be one of _those_ couples. The couple that looked perfect together and were the people walking hand in hand down a street, leaving a trail of strangers wishing they had a relationship just like that. Jake smiled his greeting to Unique as she stepped up to hug him and then gave Tina a hug as well before holding out his hand for Blaine to shake.

"You must be Blaine," he said in a voice deeper than Blaine expected. "Marley talks about you all the time."

"And it's nice to meet you too," Blaine replied. Something about Jake, even through his air of an attitude, made him smile. By the end of the evening, he would feel the same as Unique about Jake in regards to how well he fit as Marley's boyfriend.

The four sat around the table, ordered their food and talked of little things that a group of friends would turn into full blown conversations. All four had the chicken soup, Tina even admitting that Marley's addition of carrots and leeks to the recipe made the soup just that little bit nicer. They were tucking into their entrées, complimenting the food through mouths stuffed full, before one of the two women of the hour turned up.

Marley was dressed in a knee length skirt but had the whites of a chef over her outfit and was smiling like the cat that had finally gotten the canary. Her eyes flicked over the dining room, the customers happily munching on the food she had prepared with her mom, and her friends at the table followed her lead to overlook the room.

"Do you guys like it?" she asked eagerly, pausing next to Jake's chair as she looked expectantly at some of the most important people to her.

"Of course we do," Blaine said emphatically, seeing his dinner companions nod their heads along with him. "Marley, this is fantastic."

She blushed in response and perched on the very edge of the armrest of Jake's chair. He slid his hand around her waist and rested it on her thigh, high enough so that one would know they were dating but nowhere high enough to encroach on disrespectful territory.

"And how you included us and our recipes in the menus," Tina added, awe and emotion in her voice. She couldn't finish her sentence and just shook her head with a smile for her friend.

Marley's blush deepened. "I just wanted to thank you guys for being good friends. Putting dishes inspired by you on the menu was one of the ways I could do that." She leant against the side of Jake's body and Blaine had to admit that they made a cute couple. Would he and Sebastian have made a cute couple?

A waitress came up to Marley, her blonde hair tied in a tight ponytail high on her head, and whispered in her ear. The waitress returned to the kitchen only after Marley nodded, then she turned to her friends again.

"Mom needs me back," she explained. "But I wanted to come and check on you guys. Blaine, you should definitely try that chocolate and coffee cheesecake."

Blaine laughed and nodded to say that that would be the exact dessert he ordered. The four of them watched Marley return to the kitchen, greeting the tables that she passed to make sure the customers were pleased whether they were friends, food critics, or the lucky public who had managed to book a reservation at the restaurant opening.

"I'm so proud of her," Jake murmured while he watched his girlfriend walk away, then he blushed as he remembered he sat with his girlfriend's closest friends. Blaine ducked his head to hide a smile. He'd been right: Marley and Jake were one of _those_ couples.

"So Jake," Tina asked as they waited patiently for their desserts to arrive, "I've met you twice and I don't actually know what you do."

Jake laughed, took a huge gulp of the wine in his glass and then looked right into Tina's eyes as he spoke, almost like despite the good feelings between them, he expected her to judge him. "I'm doing the graduate program in Dance at Tisch."

"Do you want to be on Broadway?" Blaine asked, cutting over whatever Tina had opened her mouth to say. He didn't recognize Jake from NYU, but that may be because Jake had moved from the college where he finished his undergrad to complete his graduate program at Tisch. "I went to Tisch as well, so-"

But Jake was shaking his head. "I think I'd rather be an choreographer for Broadway or maybe an instructor in a dance school here. I'll leave being on the stage for you actors."

"You should talk to Tina's boyfriend," Blaine informed Jake, gesturing to Tina as he spoke, "Mike's a choreographer for Broadway shows. He's doing_ Top Hat_, right, Tina?" She nodded in response while Jake sat back in his chair and whistled. Knowing someone who was choreographing a musical where the part was first played by Fred Astaire would help him immensely.

"Speaking of boys," Unique interjected, efficiently changing the subject, "Blaine, I know you and Eli ended, but is there anyone else on the horizon for you, boy?"

Immediately blue eyes, brown hair, a blue scarf, figure hugging grey pants and a breathtaking moment flashed before Blaine's eyes. He could see Tina watching him with a raised eyebrow, daring him to tell Unique and Jake about the man from his dreams whom he'd never meet again. He was spared answering right away by the arrival of their desserts, but as soon as their waiter left them, he was scrutinized again.

"Um, no, not really," Blaine started to say but Tina cut him off.

"He met someone, Unique," she informed them, but before Unique's happy smile could fully form, she explained the rest. "Blaine just doesn't know who he is."

Unique's smile dropped from her face and her eyebrows creased together to show her confusion. "So you met him online? Or at a blind date thing?"

"No, it's not like that." Blaine shot Tina a glare for explaining his situation with Sebastian so poorly. "I saw him on the street and while I know his name, I don't know how to contact him."

The moment when Unique realized what Tina had been saying and Blaine had said was visible on her face. "Oh, so you met him once and now you're in love." Tina nodded emphatically while Blaine lowered his face in embarrassment. That was an entirely correct assessment, if a little blunt. "What's his name?" Unique asked after a few minutes of the four of them tucking happily into their respective desserts. Tina looked up sharply and shook her head, but Unique only slapped her on the arm to stop her disagreeing. "We'll be like detectives and find him for you."

As she spoke, Blaine pictured the scenario. Sebastian stood in a beautiful suit, maybe wearing an ascot rather than a tie, smiling at Blaine with Unique, Tina, Marley or even Jake standing behind him. Sebastian would be pushed forward by whichever of Blaine's friends had found him and he would stumble towards Blaine. Or maybe they'd meet in the middle, throwing arms around each other and kissing like they both knew they had each found their dream man.

So Blaine told Unique Sebastian's name and where he'd bumped into his man, wishing that somehow fate would be on his side for once.

* * *

_They were in _Rose_ that evening for a massive meal prepared by Marley just for them. Blaine sat next to Tina on one side and next to Sebastian on the other. He held Sebastian's hand in his own, long fingers interlaced with his, and while he wasn't looking at the man of his dreams, Blaine was entirely conscious of whatever Sebastian was doing._

_Right now, the love of his life was delicately eating the chicken and lokshen soup, but his eyes were flicking over the crowd of Blaine's friends, almost like he was nervous about being here._  
_Blaine broke off his conversation with Mike and Tina and turned to his boyfriend, tugging on his hands to gain Sebastian's attention._

_"Are you okay, Bas?" he asked, stroking the back of his hand with his thumb._

_Sebastian dipped his spoon into the soup, letting the liquid and chicken pieces swirl in its wake, and looked at Blaine. His eyes were like a kaleidoscope of colors ranging from blues to greens and were always filled with the emotion coursing through Sebastian's veins at the time. Right now, Blaine looked into those eyes and saw the nerves._

_He leant closer and rubbed the back of Sebastian's knuckles a little firmer. "Why are you nervous?" He made sure to keep his voice low so that he didn't accidentally embarrass his boyfriend and make his nerves more palpable._

_"I just want your friends to like me," Sebastian replied in an equally low voice. He returned Blaine's calming stroking with a squeeze of his hand._

_Blaine didn't laugh, although he wanted to dismiss the notion with a wave of his hand and chuckle until his sides hurt. He had told Sebastian that his friends already did like him, having heard all the stories from Blaine, and tonight was the time for his friends to introduce themselves to Sebastian._

_"Bas, they love you already," he reassured his boyfriend, "You have nothing to worry about."_

_"Your friends are so important to you Blaine," Sebastian murmured back, his voice a little higher than normal due to his nerves. "I guess I don't want to give them an excuse not to like me."_

_"What could you do to make them not like you? And I told you, they already do. I talk about you all the time, so they practically know you by now." Blaine gave Sebastian a small smile, one side of his lips curling up a little higher than the other. "And what's not to like?"_

_Sebastian returned Blaine's smile with one of his own and responded to Blaine's tease by nudging him lightly in the shoulder. His expressive eyes were focused on their joined hands and Blaine followed his gaze. There had been so many times when Blaine had still been single and had seen Tina holding hands with Mike, Marley with Jake, Unique with whoever she was dating at the time, and he'd wished for someone whose have could fit perfectly with his own like puzzle pieces. Gazing at their interlocked hands, fingers tightly pressed against the back of the other's hand, Blaine had a comfortable feeling that this was one of those moments, that one of his single friends could be looking at him and Sebastian right now and wish that they had a relationship even close to Blaine's._

_"And besides," Sebastian commented a few moments later, still keeping his voice down, "Mike and I are practically in the same boat, so we can always hide from you together if we need to."_  
_Blaine laughed, ducking his head as he smiled. "Mike does seem to love you."_

_Blaine sat back in his chair after speaking, seeing the nerves had drained a little from Sebastian's eyes. He knew it was probably a little creepy but there were some points in the day when he just liked to watch whatever mundane task Sebastian was doing at the time. Sometimes he woke up first and watched Sebastian sleep, his eyelashes curling and barely touching his cheeks. Other times, he'd be collapsed on the couch after an intense day of rehearsals before that evening's performance and Sebastian would be bustling around the kitchen, cooking where Blaine could watch through bleary eyes._

_He felt a thrill of happiness run through him. Blaine knew he was lucky to have found Sebastian again, but he also knew that now that he had found him again, this was it. He was going to have forever with Sebastian. His fantasies had come true._

* * *

Whatever Blaine had imagined when Unique declared she would help find Sebastian for him, he hadn't pictured her turning up to a meal that he, Tina and Marley were going out for with a huge smile on her face and a conspiratorial look in her eye. They had agreed to meet for a late lunch with the invitation open to their boyfriends but it was just the three of them that had made the firm plans to go to a restaurant they hadn't been to yet that was only a few streets away from _Rose_.

"Aren't you cheating on your new place?" Tina had joked when Marley opened her menu and scanned the selection for possible meal choices.

Marley had laughed, her eyes downcast and still focused on the menu, but she didn't reply beyond that. In the first few days of her restaurant being open, it had thrived and she'd been as busy as a bee. Blaine had stopped in after work the previous day to grab a styrofoam bowl filled with the chicken soup and while he'd stuck his head around the kitchen door after he'd been given his takeout, he had said barely two words to Marley or her mother. Milly had demanded Marley take the afternoon off so she could go out to eat with her friends, although she was heading straight back to the restaurant afterwards. As was Blaine to his rehearsals; the opening night for the new cast of _A Chorus Line_ was just over a month and a half away and the director was piling on the extra rehearsals, wanting to make the change from the old to new cast as smooth as possible.

"So how's Jake?" Tina asked after they'd ordered. Unique hadn't arrived yet but she'd sent them a text letting them know that she was on her way and they should order without her.

Marley's smile grew wide and cheesy, showing off all her teeth and making her eyes crinkle. "Great. Really great. I know he's not the kind of guy I normally date but-"

"Good," Tina interrupted, cutting right through her sentence. "All of your exes were boring. Jake's really cute. Even Blaine thinks so."

Blaine had been sipping at his Coke through the straw and only half listening to the conversation, but he jerked his head up and let the straw fall from his lips when he heard his name. "What does that mean?" he asked, his eyes wide as he frantically tried to pick up the thread of the conversation.

"You and Marley normally have such different taste in men," Tina explained, waving a hand between the two of them like she was batting the air. "But you agree that Jake's cute."

"And I think he's good for you," Blaine added, cupping one of Marley's hands in his own and squeezing a little. She turned her hand over and looped her fingers through his in response, smiling as well.

"I did hear about what happened with you," she said a moment later, her tone carrying no judgemental undertones. Even her eyes were wide and innocent, looking for all intents and purposes like a friend asking after someone's love life. However, Tina gave a snort of laughter that she tried to stifle, unsuccessfully, and Marley's eyes flicked over to their friend almost like she was trying to telepathically tell Tina to shut up.

Blaine sighed, let go of Marley's hand, and grabbed his drink before sitting back in the wicker chair. He hadn't spoken much about Sebastian since the night he'd told Jake and Unique, both of whom had obviously filled Marley in as soon as possible. But he hadn't stopped dreaming about him: from simple romantic dreams of the two of them on a boat on the Hudson River, with the lights of New York blinking in the distance behind them; to dreams filled with passionate sex where Sebastian's legs were tight around Blaine's waist, or Blaine was pressed against the glass shower wall and Sebastian was behind him, arms around his torso. Through all the dreams he'd been having since he'd met and lost Sebastian, there had been the hope that they would find each other again. Futile hope, but ever present.

Blaine shrugged, remembering Marley's statement and hearing the unasked question about what he thought of it. How else could he reply?

"We'll just have to find you someone to take your mind off him," Marley commented, although she did that eye flick towards Tina again before she spoke.

Wanting nothing more than to get the attention off of him and his strangely hectic yet uneventful love life, Blaine nodded towards Tina, and Marley looked right at her this time. "You should ask Tina what happened with Mike last night."

Marley looked back at Blaine for confirmation that this was juicy gossip and Tina shot Blaine a look that told him she was unimpressed he'd brought it up. Luck was on her side, however, and Marley barely had time to investigate before Unique arrived at their table. She frantically pulled her shawl away from her neck, yanked the chair out, and took her seat. She took a few seconds to settle in her chair and calm her heavy breathing before looking from Marley to Tina and then settling her eyes on Blaine.

"You will never guess what happened to me today," she announced, her eyes twinkling and her voice, although breathless, filled with excitement.

The waiter arrived over Unique's shoulder and she barely spared him a glance while she ordered a drink, declining any food as she claimed she'd already eaten, and she waited until the glass of lime tonic water arrived before continuing. Blaine's mind ticked over all the possibilities that could have Unique so excited. They ranged from having met someone, to winning a cash prize of the exact right amount for surgery to her new interior designing company firing one of the founders before it even took off properly. A small part of Blaine was screaming that maybe it had something to do with him, spurred on by the way she had fixed her eyes on him as she spoke.

As the pause between Unique speaking and continuing her story grew, Marley and Tina leant in close as well. They had anxious looks on their faces, excited to hear what had their friend so animated. Finally her drink arrived, and Unique took a long sip before speaking. She was obviously thirsty but the wait had intensified the desire to know what had happened. Blaine felt like taking the drink away from her and holding it ransom it until the story was revealed.

"As you know, we were looking for an advertising company to spread the news about Spotlights," Unique informed them, talking about the company she'd helped start up. The part of Blaine that had screamed in delight went quiet upon hearing that the story didn't start with 'I've found Sebastian'.

"Well, last week, we went to speak to this ad exec that we were recommended. Someone who works at a company called Copper Media." Unique's eyes, although sweeping over all three of her friends, kept resting on Blaine as she spoke, "And the guy we were meeting, most boring man you've ever met, kept throwing in all these ideas about how we should advertise through paper media."

"I thought you were looking for advertising through the internet?" Marley interrupted, knowing far more about the vocational state of her best friend than either Blaine or Tina did.

Unique nodded. "And that's what I told Mr I-Talk-Way-Too-Much. So he asked his secretary to bring in one of the junior partners in the firm. This guy, called Chandler Khiel, came in to the meeting and started giving us all these ideas about online advertising." Her eyes went from Tina to Marley and then rested on Blaine once more, the smile on her lips growing with each word.

"And then when I said I preferred _his_ ideas to the first man's, he introduced himself and invited us out for lunch to talk a little more about business. This week," Unique continued after another dramatic pause and a sip of her drink, "we met again over lunch and Chandler kept talking about how he was bringing in his mentor to the meeting, who apparently is a genius and rarely around."

While she spoke, Blaine looked from Tina to Marley and saw the same feeling he was having reflected on their faces. They were happy for Unique and, of course, they were all interested in what was taking place in their friend's life. However, this story was going down a road that didn't seem to lead to any destination, let alone one that warranted the exuberance with which she'd begun the tale.

"So this other guy walks in and he's totally cute," Unique said, she winking at Blaine, "and starts giving us other ideas about our website. It was just me and Chandler before then and that's when Chandler realized we hadn't been introduced." She paused once more for dramatic effect. "So Chandler tells me that this guy's name is Sebastian Smythe."

Blaine swore his heart stopped. He definitely stopped breathing. The sounds of the restaurant dropped away, leaving nothing but the rush of blood roaring in his ears. The only thing that registered in his mind was that the voice, the one that had quieted when Unique started her tale about her new company, cheered for joy.

Sebastian Smythe, _his_ Sebastian. Unique had found him? It was less than a week since he'd told her about his newfound love, and barely over a week since Blaine had thought he'd lost the man of his dreams into the crowds of New York City forever.

"You- you found Sebastian?" he stammered, his eyes as wide. He held out his hand in Unique's direction and she grasped onto it, giving him an anchor to the world where he would have preferred to float away to a dreamland where he was actually meeting the love of his life.

Unique looked altogether pleased with herself. "That's right, baby," she said with a smile and a squeeze to the hand she held. "That's not all. We were out for a meal - that's why I'm not eating anything now - and with Chandler there, after business was finished we just started talking."

Blaine just knew that Tina and Marley were laughing in disbelief and would be leaning closer to catch everything Unique was saying. His entire focus was on her, his eyes never breaking contact with hers.

"Talking about what?" he asked, his voice shaking with shock. He could meet his Sebastian. All he had to do was get Unique to set them up, and that now she was working with the man it would be so easy.

"About lots of things," she replied, her face earnest but gaining a slight red tinge, "from work to life and relationships and stuff."

"Is he gay?" Marley interjected, her voice breaking in through the cloud of nothingness that blocked Blaine from anything other than the recount of Unique meeting his Sebastian.

She nodded once and Blaine's hand flew up to cover his mouth. He almost burst into a cheer, that joyous voice inside his head momentarily breaking out of his control. Sebastian was gay and he _was_ available to meet and now Blaine really could fill the role of love of his life with a person rather than the memory of one.

"He seemed very intrigued about what I told him."

Unique's latest sentence also broke through the haze but this one was like an arrow piercing a patch of fog. "What you told him?" Blaine's voice had lost its shock and now there was a frantic note present. "What _did_ you tell him?"

"Nothing." Unique's blush grew exponentially. She shared a look with Tina and Marley before changing her reply. "Okay, everything."

"Oh god." This time Blaine's hand was over his mouth out of despair rather than joyous surprise. Sebastian would think he was a freak; some crazy stalker and desperate fantasist rather than someone who he would want to meet and spend the rest of his life with, like Blaine was picturing.

"Blaine, he seemed really flattered," Unique insisted, "A bit too interested, to be honest."

"I can't believe you told him all about my crush," Blaine said through his hand, his voice muffled. Unique looked confused, and if he'd been looking at the others at their table, Blaine would have seen Tina and Marley looking confused as well. Unique went to ask why he was so mortified when they hadn't even met properly yet but Blaine pre-empted her question. "There's no way he'll like me now." He dropped his hand from his mouth to grip at the yellow fabric of his pants before continuing, "Not after hearing that whole story. He'll think I'm some desperate stalker freak."

"You are a desperate stalker freak," Tina said, raising her eyebrow, but the other three acted as if they didn't hear her input.

"I'm sure it won't make a difference," Marley said in such a convincing tone of voice that Blaine turned away from the one other person who had met Sebastian to look at her as she spoke. "And Unique can introduce you properly this time."

"Um, yeah, that's the bad news."

Blaine snapped his head to look back at Unique so fast that the joints in his neck clicked in angry protest. Her blush had faded but she was now fixing Blaine with a look of pity. In the end it was Marley who questioned what the bad news actually was.

"Sebastian was only helping me and Chandler out today because he doesn't live or work in New York," Unique told them, squeezing Blaine's hand that she still held in a form of moral support.

Blaine swallowed hard. "Where does he live?" he asked, his voice losing the mortified tone and returning to shock.

"Los Angeles."

For the third time, Blaine covered his mouth, this time out of despair. Now his brother had more chance of meeting Sebastian than he did, after Unique had met him, talked to him and found out so much more vital information just for Blaine. It was like treasure being kept just outside Blaine's reach, and every time he stretched to grab it, the treasure moved just that little further away. A tantalizing image of Sebastian held just outside his reach.

"We'll find you someone to take your mind off him," Marley said in a voice that was meant to be soothing. Blaine just sat with his mouth covered, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair and ignored the beautiful bowl of risotto that the waiter put before him.

He'd never meet Sebastian now. There had been a chance that Blaine's luck would hold out and he'd bump into him again in the streets of New York. But with his permanent residence being in Los Angeles, he had absolutely no chance. Blaine could feel the despair welling up inside him, the thoughts of whether he'd ever find someone to share his dream with taking over in his mind. He may need to take Marley up on her offer to set him up with someone after all.

* * *

_The link to winsomela's wonderful art is here: [winsomela] . [tumblr] . [c o m] [/] post [/] 60076620701 [/] for-amys-wonderful-fic-my-fantasy-is-my_

_(Sorry for the messy link!)_


	2. Act Two

**My Fantasy is My Reality**

**Act Two**

_"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."_  
_– Maya Angelou_

* * *

"Right," Tina announced as she burst into the apartment, her messenger bag slung over one shoulder and her jacket clutched in the other hand. "I've got a date for you."

Blaine had been nursing a poorly made cup of coffee on the couch, his feet curled up underneath his haunches and the TV playing an episode of a show he'd seen a hundred times before but still loved. He was drained from the day's rehearsal and was using the caffeine in the coffee to wake him up just enough to get through the evening and into bed. For whatever reason, the cast and crew had been on a plateau for the past few weeks and ever since the director had scheduled extra practices, the intensity of those rehearsals and the demands of the director and choreographer had increased exponentially. Blaine wasn't unable to keep up; in fact, he had been praised only that day for his adaptability with the new schedule. However, the change of pace was hard and took far more out of Blaine had he'd anticipated.

Blaine stared at Tina for a few seconds like he hadn't understood what she had said. "What do you mean, you've got a date for me?"

Tina walked briskly across the hall and dumped her bag unceremoniously by the couch, threw her jacket over the back and then fell into the cushions. Before she spoke, she reached down and untied the laces on her Oxford shoes, toeing them off as she began to speak.

"Well, I haven't got you a date," she replied with a smile that was meant to be encouraging, "Marley has. One of the bartenders at the restaurant Marley used to work at. His name is Sam and she says that she's sure he's gay and single and so wants to set you two up."

Marley had threatened to find him a date but that was the last thing Blaine wanted. He had mentioned that to her multiple times since hearing Unique's story about how she met Sebastian but obviously Marley hadn't taken his pleas to heart. Blaine wanted nothing more than to return to the state he had been in before Unique and Sebastian's impromptu encounter. He wanted to wallow in self-pity, focus on how he would never meet Sebastian again and therefore never find the love of his life and consequently how he would be seventy-four and alone and still lamenting over never having fulfilled his life fantasy.

Where before he'd known about Sebastian's relocation, Tina, Marley, Unique and even Jake had been keeping their objections to his moping as understated comments, now their hints about giving up his brooding were constant and about as subtle as a ton of bricks. He didn't want to admit they were right, that his brooding was doing nothing and now Sebastian was on the other side of the country there was nothing to be done anyway.

Within his own mind he was at war as well. One half wanted to listen to his well-meaning friends and forget Sebastian, to stop all the dreams he was having about their lives together and to try and find his Prince Charming in the world of people he knew. The other half was the exact opposite, offering scenarios and dreams where Sebastian fit perfectly into the mold Blaine had created for his perfect man, including coming back from L.A. with arms open especially for Blaine. With each new day and after each new dream, Blaine's mood switched from eternal optimism to crushing pessimism.

Today was one of the days when he'd pictured Sebastian sitting in the front row of the theater, cheering for his boyfriend loudly as Blaine pirouetted and sang his heart out for the audience. How Sebastian had returned from L.A. was not known in Blaine's mind, but he didn't dwell on it whatsoever. Thus it was not one of the days when he wanted to be told that his friends had set him up on a date.

"Marley says she's _sure_ he's gay?" Blaine said, latching on to one aspect of Tina's sentence that he could pick up on, something that he could use to get out of this date. "How is she so sure? She's not the greatest at picking gay men out of a crowd."

"Unique thinks so too," Tina replied and before Blaine could jump in to question why Unique would be the ultimate authority of someone's sexuality, she added, "and don't think that because we're straight that we might not have the best gaydars or that I don't know what you're doing. I'm sure he's gay. That should be enough."

Blaine rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his temples, taking a deep sip of coffee and wishing the caffeine to work faster. He wasn't awake enough for this conversation. "Tina, I don't want to go on a blind date with someone who may or may not be gay. I don't-"

"It'll be good for you," she insisted, leaning over and tugging one of Blaine's hands away from his mug, and holding it in hers, "You need to get out there. I know you say that you're over Eli and now with Sebastian in L.A. ..." She left her sentence unfinished, cocking an eyebrow at her friend.

As if hearing Sebastian's name triggered a Pavlovian response, Blaine's mind went straight to the man. His memory of the event was still perfect, but as with any happy memory so often revisited, Blaine had embellished some events. Sebastian's smile, which had been small during the event, was now wide and cheesy in his memory. The sides of his lips curled up symmetrically and his teeth were visible through the gap in his lips, seeming to shine brightly and make the whole smile appear happier. Even just thinking about Sebastian's smile made Blaine a little lighter inside, and the part of his mind that was so supportive of his continued fantasies cheered a little louder too.

"I'm still not over Sebastian," he told her firmly, knowing that regardless which side of his mind was dominant that day, that fact was entirely true. Location or not, probability of meeting him high or not, Blaine was still not over him. He didn't want to just go on a date with someone else when he was not over the fact that he wouldn't meet – or it was highly unlikely that he would meet – the love of his life again. "And I don't want to just go on a date with someone just to get my mind off of Sebastian."

Nevertheless, the shrill sound of the outside buzzer echoed through their apartment the following evening, startling Blaine out of the mindset he'd slipped into while practicing a move Cassie had altered in one of his solo dance numbers. Tina ran to the intercom and spoke quickly to the person on the other side and then burst into Blaine's room.

"Get dressed," she ordered, striding over to his closet and throwing it open, rummaging through shirts and sweaters to find something inspiring. "Get dressed and fix your hair nice like you do on a date."

Blaine had thought the matter of his supposed date with Marley's friend Sam had been closed the previous evening. Tina had said nothing about it when she'd left this morning for her lectures and had dropped the matter like a hot coal last night. He'd apparently been naïve about the issue and he shook his head now, as much to himself as to her.

"Tina, I'm not going on a date with this Sam guy," he tried to insist but allowed himself to be manhandled out of the simple blue polo he'd been wearing and into a far nicer white and black striped sweater. She had thrown a blue cardigan onto the bed and was pressing dark blue jeans into his hands when a knock sounded on the door.

"Get dressed," she told him for a third time, fixing him with a stare that convinced him not to argue and then vanishing into the hall to open the door.

Blaine did as he was told, although he swapped the blue cardigan for a maroon one that he rarely wore but secretly loved. Today had been a day opposite from yesterday, where he'd woken up feeling so sad about losing the love of his life and the opportunity to fulfill his ultimate fantasy. The thoughts that he should probably be looking for someone else to step onto that high pedestal had started seeping into his unconscious thoughts. Being forced to go on a blind date wasn't what he'd had planned at all, but now that the opportunity had presented itself he knew he would be a fool to turn it down.

Blaine stopped by the mirror on the desk in his room on the way out and inspected his face and hair. There was no mess, no unwanted curls flicking out from the gel, although he did smooth the hair on the crown on his head for good measure. Blaine picked up his favorite cologne and sprayed twice: once on his neck and once in the air to create a mist he could step through. He'd seen Tina do that with her perfume and had adopted the practice without telling her.

He could hear voices from the hall, more than one extra which surprised him. The mystery was revealed when he stepped out of his room and saw Marley standing with a man he hadn't met and presumed to be Sam. As he flicked his eyes up and down the newcomer, Blaine would admit that his stomach tightened in attraction.

Sam was tall, blonde, conventionally handsome with lips that were almost too big for his face but so eye-catching that they suited his features. Blaine's sex-starved brain pictured lips like Sam's in various positions up and down his body, and he had to shake his head to snap the images out of his mind.

Both Marley and Tina were flicking their eyes from Sam to Blaine and back again, as if trying to gauge what their friend thought of the man they had set him up with.

Sam spotted Blaine, and before Blaine could hold out a hand to introduce himself, Sam had taken the first move. He walked towards Blaine and held out his hand, a smile making those lips curl beautifully. "You must be Blaine. I'm Sam. Marley has told me so much about you."

Blaine shook Sam's hand, smiling in return. His manner was so light and friendly, so open, that it made it impossible to dislike him. It also made it increasingly difficult to hold on to the disapproval at being set up while he was still so fixated on Sebastian.

"Yeah, it's nice to meet you too," Blaine replied. He could hardly say that he'd heard a lot about Sam.

In a move that had his doubts shrinking to just that small voice that kept asking 'what about Sebastian', Sam clapped Blaine on the shoulder as they continued to grasp each other's hands after they shook. A glance at Marley and Tina showed that they were struggling to hide smiles and Blaine resisted rolling their eyes at their obvious glee.

"Well, you boys have fun," Tina said, her voice filled with the excitement she was feeling that was thankfully only noticeable to Blaine. She gestured towards the door with her head and Marley leaned against the back of the couch, looking expectantly at the two men before her.

Blaine let go of Sam's hand, almost immediately missing its warmth and then doing a mental double take at that feeling. He had premused to be pining over Sebastian for weeks, months, even years, and here he was missing the touch of a new man.

"We can go to this bar a couple of blocks away, if you'd like," Blaine offered, trying and failing to ignore their audience. He wished Tina would drag Marley into her room, under any pretense. That way he and Sam could at least talk about the date they were being thrown together for. A date that Blaine wasn't exactly protesting anymore.

Sam's eyebrows creased together and he turned to look at the girls. "You're not coming?"

Only Marley shook her head. Tina and Blaine looked first at each other with confusion and then to Marley once more, trying to ask wordlessly for an explanation. Wasn't this supposed to be a set up blind date? Why was Sam under the impression the evening would include Marley and Tina?

"You two should get to know each other first," Marley said and waved her hand at them as if she were shooing them out of the apartment. Tina took her cue from Marley and nodded matter-of-factly. Taking the change of his evening's plans in stride, Sam shrugged and then moved towards the door. Blaine hurried in his wake, grabbing his keys from the shallow bowl by the front door.

Sam was silent on the way down to the street and made no attempt to talk to Blaine until they were at least a block away from the apartment building. He just had his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans and his eyes fixed on the street below his feet. He was walking at a fairly fast pace, quick enough that Blaine was almost power walking to keep up.

He wasn't sure what had happened back there, but now Blaine was wary about tonight. Had Marley tricked Sam onto coming out on this date? If that were the case, then Blaine would happily end the date right now and turn around to give his so-called well meaning friends a piece of his mind. A blind date was one thing, but a date that was forced was another matter entirely.

"I'm sorry, man." Sam said, his voice suddenly breaking through the worry clouding Blaine's mind, "I was just confused. I thought Marley was inviting me out to meet all her friends tonight. But it's cool, just you and me."

Blaine let out the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. So what if Marley had bent the truth a little to get Sam out with Blaine tonight; if Sam wasn't worried, then Blaine wouldn't be either. And when he got home - if he got home tonight at all - he would still casually mention that Marley should at least tell any other potential future blind dates of Blaine's that they were going on a date with just Blaine.

"So you said there was a bar near here?" Sam had stopped walking, probably when he noticed that Blaine was falling a few steps behind him, and gestured in the direction they had been walking.

Blaine nodded and slipped into step with Sam, leading the way. The bar he was talking about was a popular one but not so well known that the place was heaving each night and no one could gain entry unless they stood in line for hours on end. It was a modern place, filled with grey geometric shapes painted on the walls, a long white bar running the entire length of one side, tiny white and black tables and comfortable armchairs for seats.

Blaine pushed his way through the small crowd congregating just past the entrance until he stood right against the bar, leaning on the white matte top to catch a bartender's attention. He could feel Sam standing just over his shoulder, hovering while waiting for someone to notice the two men.

After what seemed like ages, where Blaine was all-too aware of the fact he was leaning over the bar and ignoring his date, the bartender arrived. He looked hassled so Blaine turned around to find out what Sam wanted to drink. Sam ordered a beer, Blaine following suit and forcing the wallet away from the bar when Sam made to take some money out.

"Thanks, dude," he said once he'd gotten his beer, taking a sip from the bottle. They edged their way out of the crowd and toward one of the circle of armchairs that was still free. Sticky rings from glasses left on the tables were visible and a half-empty bowl of peanuts was abandoned on the table by the two chairs they chose.

They sat, made themselves comfortable in the faux-leather chairs, sipped their beers and waited for either one to break the ice. Blaine glanced around the room for something to do until the silence was breached. He looked at the crowd, mostly to avoid staring at Sam. The bar was filled with girls in dresses, boys in shirts and jeans and a bursting cacophony of sound from the patrons. But even with everything happening around him, his eyes always came back to Sam, taking in his blonde hair, his casual clothes, his very relaxed posture and especially the way his lips were wrapped around the top of the bottle.

"So, dude," Sam said out of the blue a few minutes later. He had put his half-full beer on the table in front of him and was leaning closer to Blaine, so that he didn't have to shout over the loud background noise to be heard. Blaine followed his example, happy to finally be talking rather than sitting in an awkward silence. "Marley told me you're on Broadway. That's amazing."

"Thanks," Blaine shrugged, "although not for a couple of weeks."

While it wasn't like a dam had burst and the conversation was flowing like a torrent of water, Sam's question about Blaine on Broadway did open up a stream of talk between the two. Sam's bartending work turned out to be a way-stop in the journey to a vocation currently unknown. He also enjoyed the theater and had been a member of his high school show choir; that admission had led to fond memories of competitions past and how glee clubs across country were so similar in the way they failed to function properly.

With each sentence, Blaine forgot about the awkward feelings of the beginning of the date and he felt more and more comfortable with Sam. His feelings weren't something instantaneous and definitely nothing like the explosion of feelings he'd had for Sebastian. However, Blaine liked the way Sam talked about his passions, slipping in choice phrases that shouldn't have made sense but somehow did and doing impressions of famous stars that ranged from really good to unrecognizable. Sam was really easy to talk to, and both men were smiling widely and laughing after each new story recounted.

Blaine started the story of the past few weeks' debacle without even thinking about the simple fact that he was telling a story of a crush to a man he was on a date with. He and Sam had shoved their armchairs closer now, the better to hear each other talk, and had ordered more drinks. Empty bottles littered their table and Sam still clutched his latest beer, the amber liquid swirling around inside the bottle from his unsteady hold.

"So he lives across the country, too?" Sam asked once Blaine had finished the tale and sat back against the sturdy cushion on the back of the chair. "I'm sorry, man, that's rough." He lifted the bottle to his lips and drank, the muscles in his throat moving rhythmically with every swallow.

Blaine had to blink twice to drag his eyes from Sam's neck and it took far more willpower than he liked not to change his view to focus instead on his lips.

"It's ok," Blaine said. He shrugged, turning his own latest empty beer bottle over in his fingers. "I doubt that fate would have so much of a hand-" He stopped speaking abruptly, his brain finally catching up to what his mouth was saying through the alcohol-induced haze. "Oh god." He rested his head in one free hand and said, "Have I just spent the last half hour talking about my imaginary love life with someone? I'm so sorry."

Sam laughed and sloppily reached over to squeeze Blaine's shoulder and said comfortingly, "It's cool. We've all had those stories. It's in all the movies, dude."

_Except mine are all like that_, Blaine thought in Tina's derisive tone.

"You probably think I'm crazy," Blaine replied, still keeping the light and bantering tone of conversation but feeling the mortification welling up inside his gut. Who talked about a crush like that with someone they were on a date with, for heaven's sake?

"I like crazy people," Sam said, as if it were no big deal. He took another long sip of his beer, this time tilting his head back in such a way that his neck lengthened and the muscles were only more pronounced. Once more, Blaine had to drag his eyes away from staring at the other man.

Sebastian's beautiful features, elegant physique and musical voice were pushed to the back of his mind at the moment. Sam took up all the room. It was true that when picturing his future, Blaine hadn't had the image of an old high school jock who happened to be interested in acting starring in the role of his perfect man, but he could see it. Blaine's mind was conjuring the image of a house in the suburbs, with Sam sat on the couch with the game on - any sport, it wouldn't matter - and Blaine sliding into the seat next to him to kiss his man hello and then join in watching and cheering for their chosen team.

They sat in the bar for a little longer until the noise because unbearably loud and they were almost shouting in each other's ears to be heard. Sam was the one who finally initiated leaving. He downed his latest beer in one go, carefully squeezed the glass bottle onto one of the last free spaces on the table top and then stood up. Blaine quickly followed his example and leant closer when Sam held out his hand, slipping it around Blaine's bicep to drag him just that tiny bit closer to talk. Blaine's shoulder rested ever so lightly against Sam's chest and he could feel the heat and the static from the almost-touch.

"We should get out of here," Sam said, and nodded towards the door and then looked at Blaine, his brown eyes wide and meaningful. It was all Blaine could do not to smile like a child getting a coveted toy for Christmas.

Sam led their way out of the bar and into the street, the noise level dropping so dramatically once they were outside the building that Blaine had to shake his head for a moment. He had been there a few times and it had never seemed that popular. A sign they hadn't seen on their way into the bar declaring that it was happy hour all night explained the amount of extra people; it also explained how they could have drunk so many beers without Blaine nervously flicking through the bills in his wallet.

They retraced their footsteps toward Blaine's apartment, it apparently going unspoken that they should end up there. As they walked, Blaine noticed that Sam made no attempt to walk closer to him; no change from their awkward walk towards the bar now that they had gotten to know each other a little better. Frantically, recalling how he had felt with Eli after a few dates, Blaine cast his mind over his and Sam's date. He hadn't been reading too much into it again, had he?

Sam had been shocked at the start but he'd warmed up dramatically after he had a beer or two in him. They had laughed; they had told each other stories that were acceptable for a first date, even a little personal despite being funny. Blaine's unsubtle stares at mesmerizing parts of Sam's physique hadn't been noticed, something that Blaine was grateful for. Yet Sam had been tactile in return, touching Blaine's shoulder and his bicep. The latter was still tingling ever so slightly and Blaine knew it wasn't from the chill of the evening.

No. He couldn't be making it up. Sam was charismatic, friendly, extremely attractive and his actions tonight were not something that could be mistaken. It was obvious that Sam liked him. Blaine would put to bed this nonsense of holding onto Sebastian because here in front of his eyes was another man who was available. All Blaine needed to do was take the step away from someone living across country to someone walking right beside him.

They reached the door of Blaine's apartment building and paused, Sam looking up at the tall building and Blaine watching him look. When Sam made no attempt to invite himself inside, Blaine pointed to his building.

"Did you want to come up for another beer?" he asked, his voice hopeful. He pictured Sam's eyes back in the bar when he'd said to Blaine that they should leave. Blaine had thought they'd contained the intent to spend the rest of the evening together, entwined and gasping into each other's open mouths, but he was less certain of that than he was of Sam liking him in return.

His doubts were proven when Sam shook his head. "Oh. Thanks, dude, but I probably don't need any more." He offered Blaine a wide smile. "It's not good to be hungover when you work in a bar." Blaine laughed as well, smiling first at Sam's well worn sneakers and then up at his date.

"But thanks for tonight," Sam continued. "It was good. I had fun." He stood close enough to Blaine to be able to reach out and pat him on the bicep, which he did as he spoke and his hand lingered for just a moment longer than Blaine expected.

"Me too," Blaine said. He followed suit, reaching out and patting Sam's bicep, feeling the muscle underneath his shirt. He had a flash in his mind's eye of them lying on a bed, covers pushed to one side, pillows bunched up to the other side, Sam leaning over Blaine with his arms bare and muscles bunching as they supported his weight. The image was gone in the moment between heartbeats but it had been enough. Blaine knew Sam liked him and just because he didn't want to come up for another drink didn't mean they couldn't kiss.

He leant forwards ever so slightly, keeping his hand on Sam's bicep but not gripped so that he stopped Sam from moving. When his date didn't move away from the initial lean, Blaine leant closer, having to stretch up to counteract the height difference between his lips and Sam's. But Sam's lips moved further away as he neared, almost like his date was pulling away.

"Um, dude?"

Sam's question broke the spell and Blaine jerked back, ripping his hand away from Sam's arm to cover his mouth, his eyes wide and a blush blooming rapidly on his cheeks. Had he misread the signs so badly again? Even after going over them in his head as they walked home?

"I'm so sorry," he mumbled through his hands, then realized that his words were entirely inaudible so uncovered his mouth. "I am so sorry. I-"

Sam was laughing and he held out his hands, trying to talk over Blaine. "It's okay-"

"I'm so embarrassed-"

"Don't worry about it-"

"I just - I thought- maybe-"

"Blaine, stop." Finally Blaine stopped bumbling his words, blush still obvious on his cheeks, and listened to what Sam had to say. "It's okay. I like you, but-"

Oh, he had misread the signs badly this time. Sam had been polite throughout the evening; maybe he was like that with all the guys he was set up with? This was the first time Blaine had even met Sam; how did he know what the other man was like on his dates? Maybe he even had another guy he had his sights on and was coming out with Blaine for Marley's sake- he had been surprised it was just the two of them, after all.

"But you don't like me that way," Blaine said, finishing off Sam's sentence and continuing to speak even though Sam shook his head, "It's okay. I probably read into things way too-"

"I'm not gay."

Blaine's words died in his throat and his argument with Tina yesterday ran through his memory, asking if she and Marley were _sure_ Sam was gay. They had said yes and it turned out they were wrong. Which left Blaine in a situation where he had been on what he thought was a date with a gorgeous, funny, amiable man who turned out to be straight. Admitted after Blaine tried to _kiss_ him, for heaven's sake.

Now his cheeks burned with a blush and he knew his eyes were wide. His mouth moved without his brain telling it to. "Since when?"

Sam looked confused at the question and once Blaine heard what he'd asked, he could have kicked himself. Who asks someone since when they had been straight?

"All my life." At least Sam took it in his stride and answered, still looking confused and saying the sentence like it was a question. After he spoke, he laughed again and clapped Blaine on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, man. We're still cool."

Blaine let out a breath, his mind whirling over possibilities of getting punched in the face for trying something like that - a thought born from his traumatic experience during his freshman year of high school - to Sam being too freaked out to want to talk to him again. That had happened before as well, with an old friend Blaine had come out to, who had immediately withdrawn himself, asked if Blaine had a crush on him and then didn't believe him when Blaine told him no. Sam was someone Blaine really liked even if you took away the potential romantic relationship. They had gotten along so well together over the past few hours, laughing with each other's tales. Now that Blaine was looking at the situation without thinking it had been a date, he still felt comfortable in Sam's company. He wouldn't want it to be awkward between them, not when he'd found someone so likeable.

"I'll see you around, Blaine," Sam said, breaking through Blaine's reverie. He squeezed his hand around Blaine's shoulder, and smiled at him one last time before turning and walking in the direction of the closest subway station.

Marley was nowhere to be seen but Tina was on the couch with Mike when Blaine walked in. She jumped up when Blaine opened the door, beckoning for Mike to follow suit and was making her way to her bedroom when Blaine walked into the main room of the apartment, alone. She frowned and peered around the wall to look for Sam in the hall that let to their front door. Mike hovered just behind his girlfriend, looking from her curious look to Blaine's entirely unimpressed expression.

"No Sam?" she asked, not looking at Blaine's face until she finished speaking.

"Nope." Blaine folded his arms as he said, "He was straight."

Mike flinched. Blaine could only imagine what he'd been warned about, having stumbled in with a date to interrupt Tina with her boyfriend-at-the-time many times before. Tina's curious expression dropped from her face as fast as a stone would fall from the Empire State Building and a look of sorrow formed instead.

"I'm sorry, Blainey," she said, trying to sympathize with a situation she never could understand.

"After you said he wasn't." Blaine still stood with his arms folded but he wasn't angry with her. She had made a mistake that led to an extremely embarrassing situation, but Blaine did know she had been doing it out of the desire to see her friend happy. He would let her sweat though, and let Tina tell Marley so it discouraged any more blind dates for a little while.

"You two have a good night," he said, finally unfolding his arms to indicate both Mike and Tina. "I'll be in my room. Because I'm more likely to have a wonderful imaginary relationship with a man who lives across country than I am to have with Sam." He grinned, wide and cheekily and said brightly. "Good night!"

* * *

_Blaine stepped into the shower, steam swirling through the air and already starting to turn the mirror a hazy mist even though it had been mere minutes since he'd started the water running. It was winter and Blaine liked hot showers; the feeling of the warm water pounding on his back only second to being wrapped in Sebastian's arms and using their shared body heat to warm him up. He slid the glass shower door closed behind him but hadn't bothered to lock the bathroom door. What was the point when Sebastian was the only other one in the apartment?_

_Blaine had spent the afternoon and evening performing; the matinee crowd being far harder to entertain than the evening audience. There had been three cell phones that rang in the afternoon performance despite the audience being told multiple times to turn them off. At least Blaine had finished his solo performance before the first had rung. It had been right in the middle of_ At The Ballet_ and the actress playing Bebe had faltered, the squeak in her voice only noticeable to those who knew the song by heart. All the actors and actresses were fuming by the time the intermission started and were ready to spit fire after the final curtain dropped. All that could be taken from today's two performances was that the evening show went without a hitch._

_Blaine ran his hands through his curls, washing out the product used in the show to keep his curls stiff and in place but less controlled than he wore normally. Even after months of having his hair styled like that for the play, he wasn't used to looking in the mirror and seeing his curls relatively loose._

_His hand groped for the shampoo, pouring a generous amount into the palm of his hand and massaging it into his hair, scratching his scalp with his short nails as he washed. Blaine was so engrossed in the warm water, the smell of his shampoo and the steam around him that he missed the bathroom door opening. Before he knew it, the shower door was sliding to one side and Sebastian was climbing into the shower to join him._

_He felt the cold air from the apartment flowing in from the open shower door like knives on his skin before Sebastian closed it once more and that was his only warning. His boyfriend slid his arms around Blaine's torso and rested his head on Blaine's shoulder, making him jump from surprise._

_Sebastian laughed and pressed a kiss to Blaine's cheek bone. He had left work earlier than usual that day, using his privilege as a boyfriend to an actor to snag a last minute ticket to the evening performance. He had sat in the corner in the orchestra seats, one of the worst in the house, but he had smiled like a Cheshire cat when Blaine had performed his solo and had danced his way through all the acts of the show. Sebastian had even bought Blaine a bouquet of flowers, red and yellow roses, and met him at the stage door. After the debacle of the matinee, seeing his boyfriend had chased all of Blaine's lingering negative thoughts away._

_"You scared me," Blaine said through the steam, the soap suds of his shampoo, and the pounding of the water on the shower floor._

_"Sorry, B." Sebastian spoke with his lips against Blaine's cheek bone again, giving it a second kiss. He reached up and slid his long fingers into Blaine's hair to take over massaging his scalp._

_"I really like your curls," he said a few moments later, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen around them and snapping Blaine out of his musings. He'd had his eyes closed and was concentrating on the water falling around him, the heat surrounding him like a warm blanket, his lover's tall and lithe body behind him and those long fingers moving in circles on his scalp, drawing him deeper and deeper into a haze of comfort and love._

_"I know," Blaine replied. He heard it often: Sebastian would purposely break his gel apart when they were making out; he would make sure Blaine's hair was good and curly during sex and he had praised the stylists of the show when they chose to keep his curls free and only held in place for the stage._

_"It makes it so easy to grab onto your hair when it's loose like this," Sebastian continued, the octave of his voice dropping to a low, sultry register. As if he were well trained, a shiver ran down Blaine's spine, ending directly in his groin._

_Blaine turned around, dislodging Sebastian's hands from his hair but wanting to see those beautiful blue eyes. Sebastian dropped his hands to circle Blaine's neck, the height difference between the two noticeable when they were pressed close together. Blaine reached out and ran his hands from the curve of Sebastian's hips to his waist and then crossed his hands at the small of his boyfriend's back, fingers dancing over the curve of his ass._

_With a sharp tug, Blaine pulled Sebastian the last few inches closer to him, so that their chests were flush against each other's. "And why would you need to grab onto my hair?" Blaine asked with a smile on his lips and teasing in his voice._

_Sebastian threw back his head and laughed, the water pounding around them not drowning out the sound at all. In fact, his joyous laughter bounced off the tiles and only grew louder in volume. When he finished laughing, he looked back at Blaine with such joy in his face that Blaine chuckled. Sebastian's face was so expressive when he was happy - was so expressive period - and Blaine loved to see him laugh._

_"I love you," he said, wanting nothing more than to see Sebastian's eyes sparkle._

_He was not disappointed, as Sebastian's eyes were shining with delight as they always did whenever Blaine said those words. He closed the gap and pressed his lips to Blaine's, cupping the back of Blaine's head as he kissed him. Sebastian's lips were soft but firm and the pressure sent another shiver running down his spine._

_Sebastian pulled away for just a moment, looked Blaine right in the eyes, and said, "I love you too."_

_Blaine barely had time to swell with happiness, as he did every time he heard Sebastian say those words, before his lover was diving back in for a second kiss, this one with a purposeful intent behind his lips._

* * *

It took just shy of a month before Blaine could spend time with Sam without blushing at least once. He had been spot on with the assessment that they would be good friends; it just took a little more time than Blaine had anticipated for him to stop envisioning his attempt to plant a kiss on Sam's lips.

The second time they had met had been at Sam's work, the background music of the bar thumping the bass through their veins, Unique dancing with a man after downing enough liquid courage only a few feet away.

Sam had leant over the bar to hug Blaine, knocking a few empty glasses aside that no one paid attention to. It had made Blaine jump, stopping his arms from rising and returning the hug but Sam had seemed not to notice and happily slapped Blaine on the back before pulling back to smile at his new friend. Blaine's returning smile had been small and tentative, but a giant knot that he hadn't even realized had formed in his chest slowly untied.

He had _liked_ Sam, enough to want to date him and more than enough to want to keep him in his life as a friend. The voice in the back of his head - the same voice that told him Sebastian was just a pipe dream - kept telling him that no straight man would want a friend who tried to kiss him the first time they met. With Sam's happy greeting and when no mention of the date came up, in that night or any other since, that little voice was silenced. At least about Sam.

Any attempts to set Blaine up on another blind date had also stopped, much to Blaine's amusement and relief. Tina had called Marley the morning after the blind date and she'd come over with homemade cookies as an apology for getting Sam's sexuality so wrong and putting her friend into a decidedly embarrassing situation. Blaine, being in his cocoon of blankets at the time, had simply stuck his hand out of the covers to grab a cookie. He'd told Marley not to worry once he had managed to drag himself from the warmth of his bed, telling her that while he knew she had meant it out of the goodness of her heart, it might be best to keep the blind dates to a minimum at the moment.

She had done just that, her reluctance to set Blaine up with someone to take his mind off Sebastian deterring Tina as well. Thus, Blaine was granted a few weeks of peace, with nothing but his dreams featuring a man.

Besides, he didn't have any time to think otherwise. The last few weeks before the change of the cast and Blaine's opening night flew by fast, faster than he had ever thought time could go. He swung between two modes: intense rehearsal and sleeping to recover from said rehearsal.

As if the fates had stepped in, everything seemed to go wrong. Costumes were too tight, props weren't in the right place at the right time, someone caught the flu and couldn't make rehearsals for a week and a half. It was as likely for something to go wrong as to go right in the last few weeks until opening night.

"I'm not sure if there's a theater term for this," Sam said one evening after Blaine had collapsed into the couch. Sam, used to showing up uninvited but never unwelcome, had made himself comfortable until Blaine returned from work, so that he and Blaine could continue in their marathon of Marvel universe films (they were up to Iron Man 3 by now.) Blaine lifted his head from where he'd been resting it on his folded arms, and looked at his friend with weary eyes. Sam gave Blaine a wide smile and continued on to say, "Isn't it better everything goes wrong now than while the play is happening?"

Blaine nodded in return, his head moving almost lethargically. Of course it was better than everything going wrong on opening night. It just didn't make these last few weeks any easier.

Sam waited until they were part way through the movie to turn to Blaine, an unabashed smile on his face. "So you know I asked you to get me tickets with your friends on your first night?" Blaine nodded. He'd felt such a swell of affection for his newest friend when Sam had declared he wanted to see Blaine's opening night that he'd gone down the very next morning to reserve one extra. "Can you make it two?"

"Sure." Blaine knew he could smile sweetly at the girl who organized tickets especially for the actors. He'd made a point of becoming her friend for a situation just like this one. "Who's the extra ticket for?"

Again Sam smiled, although this time the smile was more sincere. Blaine wondered if Sam knew that he could have asked for five more tickets and Blaine still would have gotten them for him. "My new girlfriend." At Blaine's wide-eyed look, he nodded proudly. "That girl I told you about last week? She said yes. So seeing you will be our second date."

Blaine reached out and grasped Sam's shoulder firmly. His smile was sincere and the joy in his voice was noticeable when he said, "I'm really happy for you Sam. Of course I'll get you a second ticket."

They turned back to the TV in time to watch Tony Stark crouching on the ground to let the Iron Man suit form around his body, but Blaine's mind wasn't on the film anymore. He was happy for his friend, happy for Tina and for Marley, but every time he thought of a relationship around him, his mind always led him to Sebastian.

Blaine would be walking through a crowd of commuters to get to the subway and he could picture Sebastian leading the way through the groups of people, his hand linked with Blaine's so they didn't lose each other. He could be waiting in line at a coffee shop and would picture Sebastian sitting at a table, tapping away an email to a client or even pushing Blaine to go and find them a seat while he waited in line for their drinks.

Twice more they had eaten at _Rose_, Jake joining Blaine, Tina, Mike and Unique even though Marley was working at the time, and it was all Blaine could do not to fade out of the conversation completely as he imagined Sebastian joining them as well. He hadn't spoken to Sebastian for more than a few moments - definitely hadn't heard him say anything other than apologies and gratitude - but somehow Blaine could imagine what Sebastian might say in response to any conversation his friends were having around him.

Tina chatting with Unique about the dress she had recently bought: Sebastian would include how the fabric color matched Unique's skin tone perfectly and maybe she'd like to try bright red shoes instead of black.

Mike, Jake and Blaine talking about the basketball playoffs or the final in the upcoming weeks: Sebastian would laugh and tell stories about how often he would distract his boyfriend from the sport, sometimes with success and sometimes with no reaction at all.

Mike asking Blaine about how the last few rehearsals were going before the cast changed and he started in the role of Mike: Sebastian would say how proud he was of Blaine's first proper Broadway role and then inquire about any choreographic disasters happening for Mike at _Top Hat_.

The man was in Los Angeles but Blaine could close his eyes and imagine Sebastian sitting in the quasi-comfortable theater seats, eagerly waiting for the curtain to rise on Blaine's opening night. He would be dressed fabulously, a scarf tied round his neck and wearing pants that were a little looser than normal to allow for comfort in the mostly uncomfortable theater seats. His blue eyes would be fixed on the stage, his hands tapping on his crossed legs out of nerves for his boyfriend. The smile that graced his lips would be infectious and his pride noticeable from the stage when the curtains rose and Blaine stepped into the spotlight.

A loud burst of sound from the film made Blaine start, his head jerking up from where it had lulled to the side. Sam gave a hoot of laughter and shook his head fondly, reaching out to slap Blaine's bicep in another attempt to keep him awake. Opening night was just a few days away, and while Sebastian had no chance of being there to see Blaine perform, it really warmed Blaine's heart that his friends would see his first performance as a lead on the Broadway stage.

* * *

Pandemonium.

Blaine had never actually known the true meaning of the word until he starred as one of the leads in a Broadway show. He'd performed on stage before: in high school, during his years at Tisch, in chorus parts to other Broadway productions. However, now that he was in one of the main parts in this show - despite the sheer number of main parts that were available - he was truly experiencing the mad rush of panic that swelled through the actors and stagehands in the wings.

He sat in a chair, already dressed and made up, but someone had decreed that his hair needed to be redone while he was supposed to be doing last minute preparations. Blaine hadn't even had time to argue that his hair was _fine_, thank-you-very-much, before being forced into a seat.

His head was jerked this way and that, his ears absorbing all the shouts and cries of frantic stagehands that never carried past the walls separating them from the audience. Three people rushed past him, tugging at their tops and pants as they walked until the costumes sat exactly right. They hurried out of the wings and onto the stage, standing in position just as a great round of applause filled the theater outside. The conductor had obviously been introduced and taken his place.

"Blaine."

He snapped his attention in front of him and saw Caroline, the tiny woman with a powerful voice who played Diana, and she smiled at him expectantly. Her eyes flicked to the woman behind Blaine, her hands full of grease, and the stagehand backed away with a sheepish grin.

"Come on." She jerked her head towards the stage, explaining in one action what she hadn't actually said. Most of the performers were in position, smoothing down wrinkles in their costumes and wiping imaginary lint away from their shoulders. Caroline bustled onto the stage before Blaine could thank her for saving him from having his hair plastered just too much, and he followed suit.

The applause from the audience had died down by the time Blaine stepped onto the stage and there was a pronounced pause. Everyone, actor or audience member alike, held their breaths before the opening notes of the Overture began and a thrill ran through the actors and actresses on the stage. The girl starring as Kristine, Samantha, knocked Blaine's shoulder with her own and they shared a look that was filled with both excitement and nerves. This was her first starring role in a Broadway musical as well.

The curtains lifted, and for a brief moment Blaine was blinded by the lights that illuminated the stage and threw the audience into darkness. Then the familiar tune played by their pianist took away any stupor his nerves may have dragged him into.

Not only had he practiced this a hundred times, but Blaine was a performer and this was his dream. His part didn't come in for a few seconds and he took the time to inhale, filling every last corner of his lungs. He put thoughts of his future partner from his mind: Sebastian was in Los Angeles anyway and he had yet to meet anyone who would come close to stepping into the coveted role. Right here and now was Blaine's dream coming true.

His solo was coming up, the first after their opening group number, and Blaine would do nothing except perform his part perfectly.

* * *

The joy on his friends' faces when he finally emerged from the stage door was so infectious that if Blaine hadn't already been running on an adrenaline high from the show, he would have smiled so wide just from them. Tina bounded towards him, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing hard. Marley and Unique weren't far behind and neither girl waited for Tina to let go before they added their hugs. Two of Blaine's co-stars had to sidle past the mess of people just past the stage door before Blaine was finally let go.

"You were fantastic, Blainey!" Tina said into his ear right before finally letting him go. She had seen him in shows before, watched from the audience when he starred in West Side Story in high school and then as chorus members for any show on- or off-Broadway, but Blaine had never seen her smile so proudly at him before. "I knew you would be," she continued, in a far quieter tone, and she pressed her hand to her heart as if to keep her emotions bottled inside her skin. "But seeing you up there, it's like your dreams come true."

Blaine felt her praise run through him, making him feel lighter inside. Tina was biased after her and Blaine's long friendship, but she was also the sort of friend who would tell him that 'yes, those pants do make your ass look big'. Hearing her praise, obviously from the heart, was something to be cherished. Blaine's eyes flicked to his other friends and saw in their faces that they looked as Tina's felt and the feeling inside Blaine's chest grew even larger with the joy passing between his friends and him.

"Are you going out with the rest of your cast?" Tina asked, looping her arm through Blaine's and starting to walk away from the stage door.

He shook his head. "We're going out at the end of the week." It had been a majority decision, born from the desire not to jinx any first week performance. There were no performances on Mondays, so after the Sunday evening show, they would celebrate a successful opening week.

Jake, Mike and Sam had been standing a little way away from the stage door, allowing fans from the show and their excitable other halves the space to greet Blaine. Sam was standing holding the hand of a beautiful girl Blaine didn't know, a girl who must only be Sam's new girlfriend. He dropped her hand like a stone when Blaine emerged from the crowd circling the stage door and strode over, dislodging Tina when he threw his arms around his friend.

"You were great, man," he said into Blaine's ear. It had taken a few hugs like this for Blaine to relax enough to return them. Sam had been tactile on their non-date and since then had continued to be comfortable with touching his friends. All Blaine had been confronted with in the past were straight friends being free with touching their fellow straight men but awkwardly hugging Blaine or sticking to patting him on the shoulder. Straight, tactile Sam was a welcome change and by now, Blaine was hugging his friend with the same fierceness.

"Thanks," he said as they separated. Sam kept his hand tight on Blaine's shoulder while he looked over his shoulder. His new girlfriend moved forwards, a smile on her face that was wide and friendly.

She was as pretty as Sam had described in the many conversations he'd spent detailing to Blaine how he wanted to ask her out. Her black hair was straight and to her shoulders, and her bangs were cut sharply across her forehead to accent her eyes. She was shorter than Blaine - a rarity even with women - and sporting curves that so many girls looked on with suppressed envy.

"I'm Mercedes," she said, holding out her hand in greeting. "And you really were great."

Blaine took the offered hand and returned her warm smile with one of his own. "Thank you," he said, his voice filled with sincerity. Having someone whom he'd only just met tell him they liked his performance also filled him with joy; maybe strangers he'd never meet would also go home and tell their friends how much they liked the show too. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

Mercedes nodded, wordlessly telling him that she had indeed enjoyed the musical greatly, and slipped her hand into Sam's after she and Blaine had shaken. "I've seen a lot of musicals with my best friend before, but never _A Chorus Line_. It's a good musical, even if there are so many parts to keep up with."

Blaine nodded his agreement. "It makes the initial rehearsals fun as well," he told her, his other friends listening intently too, "when no one really knew where to be and how to share the stage with about seventeen other actors."

Sam squeezed Blaine's shoulder again, looking around the group circle that had formed while Mercedes and Blaine had been talking. "Drinks," he declared. "We need to go for drinks to celebrate."

* * *

Blaine's days and weeks took on a pattern after opening night. Mondays were his day off, but every day he'd attend rehearsals in the afternoon, leading to the performance during the evening. There were the two performances on Saturday; Tina made it a point to drag Blaine out for a quick trip to a nearby coffee shop in between the matinee and the evening performance. After the show, he would come home and fall into bed, only to be dragged out of sleep by his grating alarm the following morning.

His friends often met him outside the stage door whether they'd been able to see the performance or not. Marley and Blaine discovered that the closing time for _Rose_ was within half an hour of when he left the theater, so they would find a late night deli to buy a snack and talk about their day together. She would often gush about how perfect Jake was and how her relationship with him was as perfect as a relationship could be, causing Blaine to picture the day when he had a man to hold hands with and croon over with his friends.

Sebastian always came into his mind's eye when his thoughts took him down that path.

It was like his dreams were in a stalemate at that moment. His Broadway dreams were in full swing. He might not be starring in an iconic role or originating one but he was receiving a thunderous applause every evening and the reviews had been mostly favorable about the new cast.

It was his romantic dreams that were stuck. His heart still clamored for Sebastian, the perfect man to fit his picture perfect future. Yet his head was telling him that there was no way he would ever be with Sebastian and he should start looking once more. The two sides had been at war for weeks, one side winning and then the other as the situations around Blaine changed.

The stalemate broke a few weeks later with Mercedes, of all people, piping up with an option.

It was a warm Monday in June that he, Sam, Mercedes, Tina and Mike had taken the opportunity to wander around the zoo in Central Park. Tina and Sam had been the ones dragging the others towards the park and it was worth it to see Tina cooing over the baby penguins in their pool and Sam dragging them to watch the monkeys swinging and looping around their enclosure.

Mercedes was standing back from the cage bars with Blaine and Mike and laughing every so often as her easily excitable boyfriend laughed and pointed out another monkey leaping from ledge to tree branch to ledge.

Mike had started the conversation, turning to Blaine and asking, "Any more luck on the romance front?"

Blaine's opinion of Mike hadn't changed over the long months of him dating Tina and he was glad that Mike's desperate desire to be friends with his girlfriend's best friend had seem to have taken a less obvious route. Whether that was because Mike realized it was a fruitless effort to force a friendship or if he had realized that Blaine _did_ in fact like him, Blaine didn't know. But they could now talk like friends rather than the way Mike would clearly focus on Blaine, include him in conversations and make sure he felt in no way like a third wheel.

Blaine sighed in response to Mike's question. "No luck at all," he replied. He shrugged, slipping his hands into the pockets of his bright red pants, and said, "I haven't even been on a date for weeks. Not since-"

He stopped, aware of Mercedes standing with them and not sure if she knew that he and Sam had been out on what Blaine had thought was a date. It seemed Sam had told her, however, as she laughed and said, "Not since you and Sam went on that blind date?"

Blaine nodded, glad that it wasn't an awkward secret between them. He liked Mercedes: she was vibrant and had a personality that made you smile and warm to her. The last thing he wanted was to be awkward with his friend's girlfriend because of an embarrassing non-date before they had even met.

They were quiet for a few moments, the sounds of the zoo filling the silence. Children laughed and cried out for ice cream, the animals hooted or squawked as more humans pressed their faces to the nets and Sam laughed loudly again as two monkeys appeared to somersault over each other.

"I know this probably seems quite forward," Mercedes commented, looking Blaine directly in the eyes. Given the nature of what she was about to say, Blaine gave her credit later on in not avoiding his eyes as someone he barely knew tried to set him up, "but my best friend is despairingly single. I've been trying to set him up with someone for ages and-" she swept her eyes up and down Blaine with a sly smile on her lips "-I think you two would get along quite well."

"Oh." Blaine was taken aback. Whatever his thoughts had been when Mercedes had started speaking, he hadn't expected to be offered another blind date. None of his friends had even brought up the possibility after the debacle with Sam.

"Okay," he said tentatively. Was he really ready to dive into another blind situation? Was he really over Sebastian enough to accept a second blind date? "What's his name?"

"Kurt." Mercedes smiled encouragingly, her body language betraying how excited she was now that she was setting up her best friend with one of her boyfriend's friends. "I can always invite you and Kurt over for dinner one night, so you can meet without the pressures of a blind date."

Blaine could take one thing to heart with this setup: Mercedes was friends with this Kurt, so she'd known without a shadow of a doubt that he was actually interested in men this time. That meant the no matter what actually happened on his blind date with Mercedes' Kurt, it was starting out better than his date with Sam had. Although, not much could be worse than a date with a straight man when he thought he was gay.

* * *

It was excruciatingly hot in the theater the Thursday evening about two weeks after Mercedes had offered to try and organize an evening where Blaine could be introduced to her friend Kurt. The stage lights were doing nothing to help the heat but it did add an element of realism to their performance._ A Chorus Line_ was set during an audition where the hopeful auditioners would be hot and sweaty after a long time dancing; the heat of the day and the additional heat from the lights gave the effect that the actors and actresses were indeed hot and sweaty after their time dancing.

Even after the opening number, Blaine could feel the sweat dripping down his back and it was a relatively hard task not to break character to wipe the sweat from his brow. He was, if nothing else, a performer and he could act like the sweat wasn't a distraction.

The man playing Zack, one of the only two actors not replaced in the change of cast, started speaking.

"Mike, let's start with you."

Blaine stepped forward, as rehearsed, and he knew he could probably do this performance while he slept.

"Er," he said, giving the audience a sheepish grin, as if speaking to the off-stage Zack directly. "Don't you want to start down at the end?"

"No, we'll start with you. And relax."

This was one of the bits Blaine loved, and one of the aspects that had drawn him to audition for the character of Mike in particular. The part he was playing wasn't a particularly big part, even in a musical that contained multiple main roles. However, Blaine's talent lay more towards singing than dancing, and in taking the more dancing-orientated role of Mike, his experience grew. He was nowhere near as good as Mike Chang was, and would never get to that level of experience no matter how many dancing roles he was offered, but at least he could add a dancing role to his otherwise singing resume.

The familiar opening notes to his solo started to play, a melody that Blaine would be able to hum for the rest of his life. As he had rehearsed so often that the moves were instinct, Blaine's hands flew to the sides of his body, palm facing the stage, and the smile on his face went from embarrassed - as it had been when he was talking - to playful like the song suggested.

_"I'm watching sis' go pitterpat,_" he sung, turning his head to sweep his eyes over the audience. Most were bathed in darkness but the front few rows were illuminated by the stage lights. Yet, even knowing the theater was full of eager watchers just listening to him sing and watching him perform, was enough. He didn't need to see them or their delighted faces.

"_Said 'I can do that'_," Blaine sang as he danced his way across the stage, singing the lyrics he knew well enough to recite in his sleep. "_I can do that._"

He danced from stage right, where he stood in the line of would-be dancers in the musical, to stage left as he sung, revelling in the feeling of everyone's eyes just on him. During the musical interlude of his solo, Blaine danced back towards his starting place.

It was there, moments before he was due to pick up the lyrics again, that Blaine's eyes focused on a pair of people in the audience. They were sitting in orchestra seats so close to the front that they were visible in the dark theater because of the lights from the stage.

Sebastian.

He was sat with a small woman, with long brown hair and a look on her face that was both judgemental and attentive. Sebastian was watching the performance with a small smile on his thin lips, the blue eyes Blaine had pictured so often crinkled around the edges from the smile. He was wearing a scarf tied around his neck like Blaine had imagined before his opening night, although his legs were shrouded in darkness from the seats in front of him.

In truth, the only reason Blaine didn't freeze and miss the musical cue for his next line was the sheer amount of times he'd practiced this exact move. Cassandra had even spent an entire day with them on moments like this: many songs had musical interludes and she would get people to make distracting noises just to see if the actors knew their cues through the confusion.

"_I got to class and had it made_," Blaine found himself singing, his feet and body still moving the dance steps without being told to. He had to pirouette multiple times but rather than using a point in the back of the theater as spot, he brought his focus back to Sebastian. A small rational part of his brain, not absorbed in disbelief or moving on autopilot, hoped that Sebastian didn't wonder why this random performer was staring at him.

"_That I can do!_" Blaine spun on spot for a final time, coming to rest with his left foot crossed over his right, his head turned to face stage left and away from Sebastian and his hands out to his sides with his fingers splayed. "_I can do that._"

His solo finished and there was a pregnant pause in the acting to allow for applause before he finished his solo speaking part in the beginning of the musical. Normally, Blaine had to hold his final pose for a few seconds of the applause before starting to act again and retake his place in the line. Today, he dropped his pose almost immediately and directed his acted thanks to where Sebastian was sitting. Any feeling of pride he felt when he heard his friends compliment his performance was nothing he felt when he saw a bright smile on Sebastian's face and recognized that his applause was enthusiastic, rather than the polite applause from the audience that followed mid-act performances.

Sebastian was cheering for him. The man of his dreams was smiling and applauding Blaine's performance, having clearly enjoyed it. That approval, from a man Blaine dreamt about but still had yet to have a real conversation with, made Blaine feel lighter than air. He floated through the rest of that evening's show, glancing at Sebastian to see if he was still enjoying it at every chance he could. When the cast took their final bows before curtain call, Blaine's eyes sought out Sebastian one last time and he couldn't help but preen as the sight of Sebastian standing to applaud the cast. At the sight of a standing ovation, Blaine being lighter than air was no longer an accurate description. Instead, he was firmly back in his designated place on cloud nine.

* * *

"Tina!" Blaine threw open the door to her bedroom that evening and walked inside completely uninvited. He had just arrived home from the theater and hadn't even dropped his gym bag in his own bedroom before bounding into hers. The strap from the heavy duffel bag slid off Blaine's shoulder and the shoes inside it made a loud thud on the wooden floor.

"Tina!" he said again, louder this time and the Tina-shape under her covers shifted ever so slightly. There was only one person-shaped lump in the bed and Blaine leapt on to the other side, ignoring Tina's previous rule about keeping shoes off the bed. He crawled up to the pillows and reached out to shake the lumps he hoped were Tina's shoulders.

Luckily, they were her shoulders and she threw the covers away from her face, her eyes blazing with sleepy anger at being so rudely awoken. "Blaine, what the hell are you doing?" she croaked, her anger losing any impact because of the sheer amount of tiredness in her voice.

"Tina, I saw Sebastian!" he exclaimed, ignoring her question and plowing ahead with his excitement. "He was at the show. I saw him at the theater!"

Tina sat up slowly, dislodging Blaine's hands from her shoulders and rubbing her eyes to clear the lasting sleep. "What are you talking about?"

"Sebastian." He looked at her expectantly, like saying his name was more than enough to explain properly. "You know, Sebastian Smythe, the guy in LA, my perfect man." Tina nodded slowly, showing that she did know who he was talking about. "I saw him at tonight's performance. He was there, Tina. He's in New York right now!"

The look Tina gave Blaine was so reproachful that a little of Blaine's excitement receded. Why wasn't she as overjoyed as he was?

"Blaine," she said in a flat tone that left no room for argument, "he probably wasn't there at all. Just someone who looks like him. Besides, doesn't he still live in LA?"

"It doesn't matter, Tina," Blaine said as he shook his head and forcibly took hold of her hands to squeeze them as he emphasized his point. "And it was him. I'd know him anywhere."

"That's a little creepy." Tina shook her head. "It's the middle of the night, Blaine. Go to bed and we can deal with this in the morning."

Blaine did leave her room, pausing to collect his gym bag and gently closing the door behind him. Tina was asleep again before he'd even left the room but Blaine lay in bed with his eyes open and his heart hammering. His mind was whirling in circles, asking why Sebastian was back, wondering who his female companion was, pondering whether he was back for good, reflecting on his own performance and whether or not Sebastian liked it.

He must have dropped into sleep at some point during the night because he awoke to his alarm and the sunlight blaring in through curtains he'd forgotten to close in his excitement last night. It was a Monday, Blaine's day off, but he would have to be physically incapacitated to prevent him from doing all that was possible to find Sebastian.

The very first thing he did was text Unique. She wouldn't be up at 7am and on normal days, Blaine wouldn't be either. That knowledge didn't help, however, as Blaine showered quickly and then paced his room for a good half an hour before telling himself to stop staring at his silent phone and make breakfast. He even shovelled down his toast, eager to get back to sitting on his bed and waiting for Unique to reply about Sebastian's whereabouts. She may not know; she had only met him once and it was just for work, even if the conversation had taken a surprising tangent in his direction. However, Blaine would only look in another place when this avenue was exhausted.

Tina knocked on Blaine's open door an hour after he'd eaten his breakfast. She was still wearing her pajamas and her eyes were bleary but she was far more awake than she'd been in the middle of the night after being rudely aroused from her sleep.

"Do you want to explain what happened last night?" she asked, not even greeting Blaine or asking why he was awake, dressed, and sitting with his legs folded and his phone resting carefully in the middle of the bed.

Blaine patted a spot on the covers, inviting Tina to sit as he started telling her the story of what happened last night. Slowly, she crossed the room and took the seat almost in trepidation. By the time Blaine had finished his retelling, Tina was looking at him with the same look she'd given him last night.

"Are you sure it was him?" she asked, rather than simply telling Blaine she thought he was out of his mind. "Like you said, he would have been lit up just from the stage lights. They aren't too bright on the orchestra seats."

Blaine shook his head. "I know it was him, Tina. I've been dreaming about him for weeks. I remember what Sebastian looks like!"

"Ignoring the weird dreams," Tina said, and raised her eyebrow, Blaine shrugging in a non-verbal reply to her implication. "Why does maybe seeing Sebastian in the theater change anything? I thought you were going to see Mercedes' friend now?"

"It's been two weeks and nothing." Blaine checked his phone to see that there still wasn't a reply from Unique. "Besides, if Sebastian had time to come to a production of _A Chorus Line_, he might be back in New York permanently. Then I can have a chance."

"It's just a dream Blaine, and not a realistic one. I thought we talked about this."

"But it's my dream." Blaine dropped his phone onto the covers, making it bounce and flip so it was face down. "Sebastian is perfect, exactly the man I've been looking for."

Tina threw up her hands in exasperation. "You don't even know Sebastian!"

A beep came from Blaine's phone, muffled from the covers bunched up against the speaker. Blaine dove for it, turning the device over in his hands and seeing the neon screen lit up. A text from Unique waited in his inbox and with fingers that were suddenly trembling, he opened the new message.

**8.31 am:** _How did you know? Chandler just emailed me asking if I wanted to include Sebastian in our contract with them._

A second text came through as Blaine was reading the first, Tina trying to read the message upside down.

**8.32 am:** _Apparently Chandler says Sebastian can be a permanent partner in our contract 'cause he's moved back here. That's good news for you baby!_

Blaine looked up at his friend, his eyes wide and the delight on his face was clear as if it had been sculpted by a master artist. His perfect man, the man he'd given the role of his future to, was once again within touching distance. The images of him and Sebastian walking through the New York streets with their fingers entwined could become a reality. That small house in the suburbs with as big a back garden as a front yard could go from a picture in the estate agent's window to a real place to live. Everything Blaine wanted could become real with a moment of introduction to the man of his dreams.

"Blaine, I don't think it's-" Tina started to say, but a third consecutive text from Unique lit up the phone in Blaine's hands.

**8.36 am:**_ You want me to play matchmaker?_

Blaine was typing a reply before Tina even thought about speaking up to try and dissuade him. His fingers flew across the touch keyboard, typing out five different replies before settling on one to send.

_Absolutely._

* * *

The date was set for the following Monday. Every minute that Blaine wasn't rehearsing or performing that week, he was agonizing over his wardrobe. He had narrowed the shirts down first and then taken three days to select the perfect pair of pants. Unique had been roped in to help, giving him advice and then being ignored when Blaine tried the outfit on and didn't like it.

Tina spent the days trying her best to argue that Blaine shouldn't be meeting a guy he was convinced he loved from one chance encounter.

"What if he's not what you imagined?" she would say, repeating her point at multiple occasions during the week from hell. "What if your fantasy has made him into something he's not? That wouldn't be the first time and you know it, Blaine."

On Friday evening, Blaine had had enough of listening to that line of thinking. He didn't want to consider the possibility that his fantasy Sebastian would be better than the real life Sebastian. Sebastian would be as perfect in the flesh as he was in dreams.

"Tina," he said, pulling her onto the couch and tucking her into the curve of his arm. "I know what you're trying to say. But surely you can see that if I don't meet him, I'll be spending the rest of my life regretting this moment."

"It could be a good thing," she retorted.

Blaine shook his head. "I know that Sebastian is someone I can see spending the rest of my life with. I can't explain how, but I just know. I can't _not_ meet him on the off-chance that he's not who I imagined." He squeezed her shoulder, giving her a one-armed hug. "Besides, you'll be able to use our severely embarrassing past as good material for your best woman's speech at our wedding!"

The hiccup in the week came not from Tina's negativity, or from Blaine's never-ending doubts about his wardrobe. It didn't come from a last minute disaster at the theater where, for two hours, the main actress was taken ill and her understudy couldn't be reached until the very last minute. It came from a text from Sam on Saturday afternoon, a text that Blaine didn't even receive until the matinee performance had finished.

**3.15pm:** _Kurt comin fr dinner n Mon eve. You still in?_

Blaine's eyebrows had furrowed and it took him a moment to remember what Sam was talking about. Kurt, Mercedes' friend whom she had wanted to set him up with. Confronted with a blind date with a friend of a friend's girlfriend or meeting the man of his dreams, there was no choice. Blaine texted his apologies but blamed a prior engagement that kept him busy on Monday evening.

It was true after all. Unique had arranged the dinner for Monday evening earlier in the week. And Kurt wasn't the beautiful blue-eyed man he'd bumped into on the street, the man who was the embodiment of his perfect future: Sebastian was.


	3. Act Three

**My Fantasy is My Reality**

**Act Three**

_"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."_

_― Dr. Seuss_

* * *

The date was set. The location was set. After days of stressing and changing his mind, Blaine's outfit was finally set. Even the weather was playing fair: the evening was warm but not humid, the clouds banished from the sky and the evening birds adding a serenade for the young, hopeful lover as he walked the final few steps to the restaurant.

The restaurant chosen for this date wasn't _Rose_. Blaine was nervous enough about meeting the man of his dreams and he didn't want an audience. There was no doubt that his friends would be a nosy bunch and conveniently book a table close by him and Sebastian, spying on their friend in an attempt to share some of the fun. Blaine wanted none of that; the only person who was going to be anywhere near the restaurant was Unique and only then because she argued that Blaine may know Sebastian but Sebastian didn't know Blaine.

He walked into the restaurant first, ten minutes before he'd booked the table but entirely unable to wait outside any longer. The hostess was standing close to the door, clutching a clipboard in her hands and smiling at each customer as they were seated.

"Um." Blaine wiped his sweaty palms on the side of his jeans, grateful that he'd worn dark black ones so he could do just that without it being obvious. "Table for two under Anderson."

She checked the list, nodding when she found the name. "This way, sir." She gestured inside the restaurant and then led the way towards a table set for two near the window. She waited until Blaine had sat down, the metal chair legs screeching across the laminate floor, and then offered a menu.

"You're waiting for your companion?" she asked, indicating the empty chair opposite him.

Blaine nodded, toying with the fraying tassels on the spine of the menu in his nerves. The hostess left him with his racing thoughts, returning only once to pour a glass of water for Blaine and one in the empty glass for Sebastian.

Did he look okay? He'd chosen to wear clothes that he felt and Tina always said flattered the aspects of his physique that were perfect for flattering. But was it something Sebastian would like?

Did he even like French food? This wasn't the most French of French food restaurants, but the choice between Italian and French food for a first date was no choice at all.

What if Tina was right and Sebastian really didn't live up to Blaine's fantasy? How would he- no. Blaine shook his head to stop that line of thought. Sebastian would be more than he dreamed and tonight was the start of something fantastic.

Oh god, would Sebastian even like him? What if Sebastian was the leading man in Blaine's future, but he wasn't the leading man in Sebastian's? In all his dreams, Blaine hadn't even thought that they wouldn't be perfect for each other. It hadn't even cropped up in his nightmares.

"Blainey!" Unique's voice cut through Blaine's reverie at the exact moment he needed to be distracted. She bent down to wrap her arms around Blaine but let go almost instantly. "He's just outside. I said I should come in first to see if you were here yet and I'll be gone as soon as I've finally introduced you two, I promise."

Blaine stood, again pressing his hands to his jeans to wipe the sweat away. "Unique, I am so nervous."

She gave him a smile that was supposed to be encouraging but it did nothing to banish the nerves that had grown while Blaine had waited at the table. "Blaine, you've been waiting for this moment for nearly three months. It'll be all you've dreamed of and more."

The door to the restaurant opened and a man walked in. Unique and Blaine turned to face the entrance, one shrugging and turning back to the other and one smiling widely to stick her hand in the air and attract the man's attention.

Every nerve, every muscle, every cell in Blaine's body halted. Slowly, so slowly that if filmed the moment would be captured in slow motion, Blaine raised his head to look at the newcomer again.

"That's-" Blaine stuttered, grabbing on to Unique's arm in a grip that tightened with each step the man took. "That's- Unique, that's not Sebastian."

For a moment she didn't seem to register when Blaine had said, staring at the wrong man walking towards their table. Then the smile on her lips froze and she turned her head to look at Blaine, watching the panic written all over his face.

"What do you mean?" she asked, frowning a little. "Of course that's Sebastian."

Blaine shook his head. "That's not the man I bumped into on the street." He flicked his eyes to the wrong Sebastian again. This man was taller than Blaine, with brown hair that was swept away from his face. But where Blaine's Sebastian had a round face, mesmerising blue eyes and defined lips, this Sebastian had a pointed chin, green eyes and a smirk on his lips as he looked Blaine over.

Had Blaine been in his right mind, he could have appreciated that this man was extremely attractive. But he'd come here tonight expecting the beauty whom he thought he'd never meet again, not a surprise blind date that Unique didn't even know she was setting up.

"Blaine, you told me his name was Sebastian Smythe," Unique murmured frantically. She also grabbed his arm, leaning in close to make their conversation less obvious to the people around them. "I don't think there are too many Sebastian Smythes living in New York."

Blaine's eyes were wide. "But-"

No more could be said because at that moment, the wrong Sebastian joined them. Blaine looked up at him, taking in the smart suit covering long limbs and the smirk on his lips that led to the cockiness in his eyes as he looked Blaine up and down again.

"Blaine Anderson, I presume," he said and his voice was practically dripping in confidence. Blaine could see the confidence he had in himself, and no doubt Sebastian had the ability to have man hanging on his every word.

"Hi," Blaine replied. He still didn't really want to be there, but years of private school teachings had drummed in the need to be polite, so he dutifully held out a hand for Sebastian - the wrong Sebastian - to take. Sebastian grasped his hand firmly, long fingers wrapping themselves around Blaine's hand.

He knew he should speak again, maybe confirming that this Sebastian was the wrong one and then explaining the mistake before running from the restaurant. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, Blaine couldn't open his mouth to ask if this man's name was indeed Sebastian Smythe. Hearing that he'd been looking for the wrong man all the time would shatter any lasting dream Blaine was still holding onto.

The moments that followed their handshake were intensely awkward. Blaine could feel Unique fidgeting beside him and he turned to look at her, praying she could read his mind and invent a reason to drag him away from a date he didn't want at all anymore. But she was only human and the powers of telepathy were beyond her; Unique only caught Blaine's gaze once more and then shrugged.

"I'll leave you boys, then," she tapped Blaine on his bicep for courage and slowly backed away. "Have a good night."

"No, Unique-" But she turned her back on the pair and hurried away. Blaine watched her for a moment and saw that as soon as she left the restaurant, she plunged her hand into her purse and pulled out her phone. Instinct told him that Unique would be dialing Tina's number right now, giving her the updated gossip on what was supposed to be the first date that opened the gateway to Blaine's future.

"Shall we sit, or are we just going to stand all night?" Sebastian was standing with one hand on the chair, the other in his pocket and looking at Blaine like he didn't even think a meal was necessary.

"Yeah, okay," Blaine said absentmindedly, retaking his seat and shuffling the chair closer to the table. Sebastian also sat down but he kept his chair far enough away from the table that he could lean back comfortably.

Blaine didn't understand how it could have gone so wrong. This was by far a step down from reading into a conversation, finding signals that were never there or refusing to admit what was right in front of his face. This was finding out that the world had shifted under his feet without him noticing and suddenly he was confronted with an entirely different reality.

He had no idea where to go from here. He was sitting in a restaurant on a date he didn't even want to be at anymore with a guy who he hadn't anticipated being on a date with. Had Unique set him up the normal way, a way that didn't involve a love-at-first-sight meeting and pining from one party for months now, Blaine might have been smiling at Sebastian and striking up a conversation. He was really attractive, with a cockiness that didn't detract from his looks, but now, he could barely look at the man. There were a few spots of discoloration on the white tablecloth, yellow dots that Blaine's eyes were fixed on and he actually preferred to stare at them then at Sebastian. He'd had his hopes so high; he didn't want to be confronted with the proof of his hopes plummeting to the earth.

"Your friend told me a lot about you," Sebastian said, and his voice tore right through Blaine's panic. He still sounded as confident as he looked but Blaine still didn't look up from the tabletop. His insides clenched tightly instead as Sebastian spoke.

Unique, in her well-meaning search for the man Blaine had bumped into, had been telling this stranger that he had a crush. With crush being a word too small to describe how much Blaine had been obsessing about this fantasy.

Confronted with this situation, he could at least admit that he'd been obsessing over a fantasy.

"She-" Blaine swallowed, trying to drag some moisture into his suddenly parched mouth. "She told me that she said a few things."

How could he get out of this? Hand in hand with every disastrous date story came the methods of politely leaving early. Blaine's favorite by far had been the invention of a fake emergency that led to having to leave right away. But could he orchestrate that?

"Probably a bit more than a few things, killer," Sebastian remarked. As he said the nickname - or was it a pet name already? - Blaine flicked his eyes up in surprise and caught the green-eyed gaze that was levelled at him. Sebastian was forward and obviously knew what he wanted. And at the moment, what he wanted was Blaine.

His stomach sank: if he faked an emergency, Blaine had the suspicious feeling Sebastian would offer to drive him to where the emergency was. Which would leave Blaine explaining away an obvious lie.

Sebastian leaned forward now, resting his forearms on the table. His green eyes flicked up and down, although Blaine didn't know how far down he could actually see with him tucked as close to the table as he could go. Those eyes were intensive, but not looking at him with lust. There was lust there, but it wasn't the main emotion. What was Sebastian thinking?

"But I'd like to think I'd remember walking right into someone like you," Sebastian commented a moment later. His eyes had returned to Blaine's level again, the corner of his mouth flicking up in a small smile, "and that, along with your clear vibe of really not wanting to be here, tells me that I'm definitely not that dream man of yours."

Well, that was a surprise. Blaine hadn't anticipated being so obvious about how crushed his heart felt at the mistake, how a misunderstanding had caused what should have been a perfectly romantic evening to go sour. Sebastian was clever and Blaine could tell that from the moment he'd sat down and shot him a look that told him making up an excuse to leave wouldn't work. So why was he so surprised that he'd figured out the mistake so quickly?

"Well..." he began, casting frantically around his mind for an explanation. But he couldn't find anything to say that would explain his actions, in the past and tonight.

Sebastian shook his head and cut him off. "Look, if I'd have run into you in the street like-" he jerked his head in the direction of the door "-she said, I'd have made sure to have gotten your number, and we'd have been meeting and fucking every time I was back in New York."

Blaine blinked, taken aback at the frank way Sebastian spoke. It had been something Blaine had picked up on, how self-assured Sebastian seemed, but it was one thing to have that impression and another to have that belief in oneself obviously displayed in conversation.

"I sure as hell don't pass up opportunities that involve boys who look as sexy as you do." Sebastian's smirk didn't waver as he spoke even though Blaine's eyes widened and he carried on blinking in amazement and confusion. He'd never met someone like Sebastian before. It was change from anyone timid or shy but Blaine wasn't too sure if it was a refreshing change.

A moment of silence passed between them. The only thought that was running through Blaine's mind was how he really didn't want to be there. He wanted his dream man and he didn't know if he'd have said yes to Sebastian if he'd met the man before being set up on their date.

"Okay," Sebastian sat back in his chair again, his smirk dropping very slightly as he spoke, "let's have dinner, you can actually speak and then we'll decide whether it's straight back to my place or not."

Blaine found himself nodding, although his stomach didn't unclench even without the pressure of this Sebastian being the wrong Sebastian. Or was it that this Sebastian was the real Sebastian and Blaine had been looking for the wrong man? That was more likely and Blaine could slam his head into a wall for his stupidity.

He'd been dreaming about finding his perfect man and he'd been looking in all the wrong places. He wished he'd never seen that envelope, giving him false hope that he'd find his dream man one day. That man had been so perfect: Blaine could vividly picture the two of them sitting on the couch watching reruns of their favorite TV shows when they were in their fifties. He had no such images with Sebastian. He also had no real desire to try to find a way around their differences, like he'd tried with Eli and most of his past boyfriends. He'd always known very quickly that he hadn't fallen head over heels for the man he was dating at the time, like with the boyfriend he'd had during his freshman year of NYU. Blaine had met Jack, was really attracted to him, and realized almost instantly that this man wasn't going to be the one he ended up marrying but still dated him for two and a half months. But Blaine also knew when he wanted to make things work for as long as possible with the man. He didn't have that tonight.

The waiter arrived moments later and took their meal orders. Despite agreeing to stay for dinner, Blaine just ordered an entrée. Sebastian shot him a knowing smile and turned to hand his menu to the waiter after he'd ordered a single dish as well.

"We'll be having dessert though," he called out to the waiter's back as he turned to walk away from their table.

He turned to Blaine again. "So what do I need to know about you that your very talkative friend didn't tell me?"

Blaine was big enough to admit that once Sebastian stopped blatantly undressing him with his eyes, they talked comfortably. Sebastian had been in show choir too, to Blaine's great surprise, and that common talking point had loosened the uncomfortable knot that was still present in his stomach. They'd laughed about the competitions, Blaine regaling the story of his senior year's Sectionals when one of the other members in his show choir had fainted on stage and cost them the win.

It was actually a shame that they'd met under these circumstances. Sebastian didn't stop the unsubtle hints of how much he would like to get to know Blaine in the biblical sense, a phrase he actually slipped into conversation as their waiter cleared their plates and handed them the dessert menus. But that was something that Blaine could have learned to ignore, if he'd had any inclination.

Sebastian ended up getting a dessert, a chocolate sponge invention that sounded better on the menu that it looked on the plate. Out of curiosity rather than a desire to flirt, Blaine took an offered bite of the dessert, which was definitely not worth it. It also made Sebastian's eyes darken, his eyes no longer at Blaine's eye level. He'd done that on dates before, stared at his date's lips that were wrapped around a fork or spoon, so Blaine knew exactly where Sebastian's eyes and thoughts were in that moment.

The night was surprisingly cold when they left the restaurant. The check had been split between them both: Sebastian had offered to pay at the same time Blaine had done. His mother had ingrained the mentality to always do the right thing, a trait he could have done without on most days. But with them at a stalemate, they'd agreed to split the check.

"So are you coming this way," Sebastian asked, wrapping his suit jacket a little tighter around his torso and jerking his head in the opposite direction Blaine needed to take to go home, "or are we calling this a night right now?"

"I'm just going to head home," Blaine replied. He didn't shrug or apologize. He couldn't do it. The knot in his stomach had loosened and tightened over the evening but it never vanished. Blaine had come here looking for his dream man and expecting the date of his dreams. Those were big shoes to fill and Sebastian hadn't done it.

Perhaps if he'd gone in to the date knowing that this was completely blind, then he'd have looked at Sebastian with a wider perspective. He may have been considering the offer: it had been weeks since Blaine last had sex and Sebastian was hot, if nothing else. It just wasn't what he'd expected and that had ruined what could have been.

Sebastian shrugged. He stepped closer, right into Blaine's personal space, and looked down the few inches between them. Blaine had to tilt his head to look at Sebastian properly, a feat that wasn't rare for Blaine but he didn't really like such a pronounced height difference between him and a potential boyfriend. A few inches was enough.

With one finger, Sebastian tilted Blaine's face even higher by lifting his chin. The movement caused goosebumps to run down Blaine's spine - good or bad, he didn't know. Sebastian's eyes bore into his, trying to convey an emotion that Blaine didn't pick up on at all.

He leant down the last few inches and pressed a kiss to Blaine's lips. It was quick, barely more than a peck, but it was enough. There was no tingling sensation, no increased heart rate and while Sebastian was a good kisser that hinted of skill in most other areas, there was no surge of lust in Blaine's veins.

The kiss lasted seconds but Sebastian didn't take his finger away from where it was holding Blaine's chin, and he didn't step out of Blaine's personal space. "In case you ever get your head out of your fantasy," he spoke in a low voice meant for Blaine's ears only, "just let me know. We'd have fun together."

Sebastian pressed a card into Blaine's hand and stepped away after a second parting very quick kiss. He turned his head to look in the direction he'd indicated earlier before back at Blaine.

"Do you want me to walk you to the station?" he offered, speaking in a sincere tone that Blaine had only heard a small amount of times during the evening. Most had been when Sebastian had been talking about how much he really enjoyed show choir at high school.

"That's okay," Blaine said and pointed in the direction of the subway he needed, just two blocks away. The characteristic green metal fence around the stairs was lit up by street lamps in the twilight. "It's not too far."

Sebastian nodded and with that they parted. Sebastian walked in the opposite direction to where Blaine was headed, probably walking to another station or maybe he lived close by? Blaine watched him go for just a second, then turned his back on the man who took claim to the name he'd been dreaming about for weeks. He glanced at the card in his hand: Sebastian's personal number had been scrawled on the back in slanted script.

Blaine wouldn't use that number, and couldn't think of a time when he would want to call that number. Sebastian wasn't what he was looking for and it was even harder to justify calling him up, beginning a relationship that would eventually end, when he still felt the despair of his hopes crashing to the ground.

Would he ever find his perfect man now?

* * *

The following morning was bright, a blue cloudless sky promised a perfect summer day. Not that Blaine wanted to go anywhere apart from his couch. He had barely slept that night, tossing and turning under his covers before throwing them off at around 3am. He had even left his bed to sit curled against the corner of the couch by 5, throwing a blanket over his knees and just staring at nothing in particular.

He was at a loss. Never before had he felt like a ship that had lost its anchor or a balloon that had drifted from the bunch. His dreams, his fantasies, were like his fuel: he could close his eyes and picture what he wanted his life to look like and it never failed to lift his spirits.

Recently, he'd had his mind fixed on Sebastian. Or rather, the man he walked into on his way home rehearsals. He couldn't call him Sebastian anymore. The man was back to being completely unknown.

He had enjoyed talking to Sebastian last night but nothing much more than that, and that was only when he took out the innuendos and shows of how much he wanted Blaine. But Sebastian wasn't the man he'd been looking for, and that was important. Blaine had gone into the date with high hopes and they'd been crushed: the real Sebastian Smythe had had no chance. The card was still in Blaine's pants pocket, neglected and ignored as Blaine's mind whirled in overdrive.

Blaine sunk his head into his hands, gripping his curls that had been spectacularly messed up from his restless night. Perhaps it would have been better if he had never read the envelope. If he had never known a name and had never searched for a man he thought was named Sebastian Smythe.

Never asked his friends to search for Sebastian Smythe, he corrected. He had been hoping and praying to find a way to meet the man of his dreams again, but never once had Blaine searched the phonebook or looked online for someone with that name. He had told his friends who he was looking for and _they_ had found Sebastian, doing something both he and they thought was amazing.

If Blaine was honest - and that's all he was being at the moment - he had pinned his hopes so high after Unique had announced she'd met Sebastian. His living in Los Angeles had only pressed a dampener on Blaine's desires; Blaine knew that he still wished for them to be reunited once more. If only he hadn't known a name to look for, then he could have let this fantasy go.

Oh, who was he kidding? He would have measured up every future boyfriend or potential partner against the perfect man he had met on the street. But at least his hopes wouldn't have risen so high, and then been crushed so completely when his perfect man turned out to be nothing like he'd imagined.

So he was at a loss, drifting like he was a leaf in a rushing torrent of water. The only concrete thought that ran through his head at the moment was that he should just give up. He had held on to a fantasy future for so long and it had gotten him nowhere except sitting on a couch with a broken heart.

Was his heart even broken?

It felt like it. Blaine had gone into that date last night thinking that he'd found the man he'd be joining in bed for the next sixty years. He had sat at that table picturing what they might look like when going on double-dates with Tina and Mike in the near future. And when the wrong person had shown up to share the date, those dreams had vanished and his heart had just splintered.

So yes, Blaine really did feel like his heart had broken.

His dreams were as good as dust. He should probably find an animal shelter to start collecting cats for his lonely life as a bachelor.

"Have you slept at all?" Tina asked in a low voice, coming out of her bedroom wearing nothing but her pajamas and long knee length socks. They were too thick for the heat of the summer but something so familiar brought a smile to Blaine's blank face. She didn't ask about what happened last night, and knowing Tina like Blaine did, that told him Unique had texted her with an update about what was going on with Blaine's date.

"Not really," he admitted. He tugged at the blanket, uncovering the other side of the couch and Tina took the hint to sit down. She reached out and patted his knee a few times before copying him and settling into the other corner.

They were silent for a few seconds. It was almost exactly like it had been all those months ago when Blaine had spent a week moping over the loss of Eli. In between Tina's many attempts to cheer him up, they would sit in comfortable silence until something between them would break. It would either be Tina's resolve and she'd fetch some more food or put another teen romcom into the DVD player. Or it would be Blaine and he'd lament about his failed relationship and wonder if he'd find someone again.

It was no different now. Blaine was staring at a place in the floor that held no real significant markings and he knew that Tina was watching him. He could feel her eyes on him. After his night of tossing and turning and the crushing discovery last night, Blaine broke first.

"I think I should just give up trying," he said in a matter-of-fact tone that he hoped betrayed none of the heartache he felt at saying those words. Before March and the meeting of his mystery dream man, Blaine felt like he was clutching onto his dream with a fraying rope. By announcing that to his best friend, he felt like he was just letting that rope go.

After a few moments, Tina replied, "Why?"

"Nothing ever seems to work out for me," Blaine shrugged, "So what's the point?" Since when had he gotten so pessimistic? He was usually a ball of optimistic energy, filled with smiles and dreams, His bubble had truly burst.

Tina sighed, shifting around so that the springs in the couch protested. Blaine felt her hand on his knee again and she kept it there until he looked up. She was staring at him with emotion in her eyes. It was an emotion that he couldn't put his finger on, something in between incredulity and smugness. But it wasn't pity.

"Let me tell you something that I think you've forgotten. Or maybe chosen to ignore," she said. She kept her voice low but there was no mistaking the passion in her words. Blaine sat up from his slouch to listen. "Love isn't immediate. It grows every day until you think it can't get any bigger, but then the next day it's done just that."

Blaine frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You're trying to cast your true love, Blaine. Leave the casting to your producers and directors. Your true love won't come from someone who you've met on the street in a chance encounter. Your true love, that special someone you've spent nearly half your life looking for, will be from you giving someone the chance to be. And it won't be from a moment when you just look into someone's eyes and just _know_."

He was still frowning. He and Tina had spent many a night talking about that exact moment of clarity, about love at first sight and meeting _the_ one. Logically, Blaine knew that a love-at-first-sight-as-eyes-met-across-a-crowded-r oom scenario was improbable at best, but the possibility of true love being found like that was always a nice thing to dream about and to hang on to.

"Okay, look at me and Mike." Tina rested her free hand against her chest, clutching Blaine's knee just a little tighter. "We were almost dating for weeks before we decided to make it official. And you know exactly how hesitant I was because I wasn't sure that I even liked him like that. And it's been the best decision I've ever made."

"But that's easy for you to say: you ended up finding the love of your life." Blaine interjected, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. Tina was lucky in that respect. He just wasn't. "I don't seem to be able to. I just end up chasing men away."

"That's just it, Blaine. I never had a- a eureka moment where I realized Mike was my true love. I still don't know that he even is! But as more time goes by, I fall in love with him even more and I really think that he is. Love _isn't_ immediate. You just keep looking for things that'll prove that _this_ man is your soul mate rather than that one when there isn't any proof because you're looking for things that aren't there at all. You keep trying to force the men you date into a mold, but you'll never find someone to fit that mould if you're too busy forcing them in."

There was silence after Tina stopped talking, her harsh words resonating in Blaine's ears. Wasn't that what he had been doing? Trying so hard with all of his ex-boyfriends to get their dying relationships to work? It's true that Blaine had been waiting for that spotlight hitting someone, a sign appearing on top of a man's head with an arrow and words declaring that he should stop looking because this one was the one. But when that hadn't happened - because of course it wouldn't happen. He had tried what Tina was saying with his exes, had tried to see if the man he was dating could take the place of the unknown man he'd always dreaming about, without trying to force them into being someone they're not.

Right?

"Your true love isn't written in the wind or hidden in a future tarot cards will show," Tina said after he told her what had been on his mind, "and there really won't be a moment of clarity when you just realize that _he's the one_. You've got to find someone who you'll give your love to, and they'll give their love to you. Don't make them into something you want them to be and then five years into it, you'll find you're already living your perfect future."

That, Blaine pondered. There was a difference between finding a puzzle piece that fit, and trying to push two pieces together that were almost perfect.

"So where do I go from here? Are you saying I should call Sebastian?"

"Did you even like him?"

That question he could deal with without even thinking about the answer. "Not really."

Tina shook her head and playfully pushed at Blaine's shoulder. "Then no, don't call him. Wait for someone else. You know Marley- she'll find someone to set you up with. And Unique felt so guilty last night that she'll be looking to set you up with someone else as an apology. Use your new philosophy then."

She reached out and drew Blaine into a hug, squeezing his shoulders tightly and grounding him in a way that he didn't even realize he needed. He still felt like he was a boat without a mooring line, but it was as if he was trying desperately to row back to shore now that he'd found a way to get there.

He could look back on so many relationships now and realize that perhaps he had been trying far too hard to make his current boyfriend fit his fantasy. He'd done that with Eli, saying to himself that Eli would learn to love the theater if his boyfriend was on the stage. He'd also done that with the man of his dreams who wasn't Sebastian. Blaine didn't even know what his name was, as it turned out, yet he could picture their lives together to the intimate detail that may not come true when confronted with the man himself.

Blaine may never have that moment everyone wanted, the love at first sight and joyous discovery of finding the perfect partner. Yet, maybe he could try and stop attempting to make his boyfriends into something they weren't, giving them a high standard to meet and then being overly disappointed. He may never find the man who was the true compliment to his fantasy, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about calling the shelter and collect the cats for his perpetual bachelordom.

* * *

**2.21 pm:** _Meet at Mercedes place early yeah? Kurt wil get her home early for surprise!_

Sam had been so excited to plan a surprise birthday party for Mercedes and had used Blaine as a planning partner, bouncing ideas off of his friend and letting Blaine talk him out of a few outrageous ones. Blaine doubted Mercedes would like her apartment filled to the brim with foam, even though foam parties were especially fun.

It was then the end of July, five weeks since Blaine's dreams had been shattered and Tina had built them up again by giving him a new way to find his true love. Unique had been distraught when she'd seen him the first time after his date with Sebastian, only begrudgingly accepting that it was hardly her fault Blaine had been in that position at all. As Tina had predicted, she'd listed a few people she could set Blaine up with, Marley chiming in with opinions of Unique's candidates and a few options of her own, but he hadn't actually been on a date to put his new philosophy into practice.

His nightly dreams about the not-Sebastian had petered off as well. There were still a few where Blaine woke up wishing he knew his dream man's name, but then he would fall back asleep and picture the nameless and faceless someone he'd give the chance to be his true love.

Tina was so happy with Mike, and for all that she said she didn't know if Mike really was her true love, Blaine could see with all clarity that they were each other's future. If Tina had taken a chance with Mike and it had paid off, then that was the perfect example Blaine needed as proof that that philosophy worked.

He wouldn't let himself dream about not-Sebastian, because over the last few weeks he had told himself that that was going nowhere. Better to find someone new, someone faceless and nameless for the moment, and employ Tina's tactic then.

At that moment, Blaine was crouched behind the couch in Mercedes' living room with Sam, his friend almost shivering with excitement as they waited with bated breath for the door to open and the birthday girl to arrive. As Sam had instructed in his text the day before, Blaine had arrived early and finished off the last minute preparations for the surprise party. Guests had been trickling in, the friends Mercedes had made since dating Sam and her old friends from high school and college. The best moment of the afternoon so far was Jake hugging one of Mercedes' friends and introducing him to Marley as his older brother Noah, both Puckermans laughing about how small the world was that they would unknowingly know the same Mercedes Jones.

"She should be here any minute," Sam whispered in Blaine's ear after his phone buzzed to signal an incoming text. Blaine glanced at the phone but couldn't read the words. "Kurt said they've just gotten back to the building."

He looked up at Blaine, hope and sudden panic visible in his wide eyes. "She'll like this right? You don't think she'll be upset?"

Blaine clapped Sam on the shoulder. "Of course she'll like it. You've thrown her a party especially for her birthday. What's not to like about that?"

What Sam thought Mercedes may or may not have liked about a surprise birthday party, Blaine never found out. A scraping sound on the other side of the door made any remnants of conversation between the many party guests hidden around the apartment fall silent. A pin could be heard if it was dropped inside and Blaine heard Mercedes' infectious laugh from the hallway. He looked to the doorway that led to the kitchen where Mike and Tina were hid, catching Tina's eye and grinning. A surprise party for their friend was exactly what the doctor ordered to truly spring Blaine back into his optimistic bubble and lead him down the path to finding his perfect man again.

"-think you should have gotten than scarf, Kurt." Mercedes walked into the apartment first, looking over her shoulder at her friend as she talked to him. "You could have worn it if we go out for my birth-"

"Surprise!" Sam shouted, jumping up from the behind the couch and making Mercedes jump in shock. At his queue, everyone in the apartment appeared shouting "Surprise" and the shocked look on Mercedes' face changed to one of delight.

"What on Earth?" she asked Sam as he crossed the living room to reach his girlfriend. He swept his arms around her, pulled her tight against him and pressed his lips to hers. Blaine rested the palms of his hands against the solid back of the couch, leaning his whole weight on his hands as he watched the romance before him.

Mercedes was laughing when she pulled away from the kiss, smiling widely up at Sam before she looked around at everyone else who had made up the surprise. Then she looked over her shoulder to where Kurt must be standing, just behind the corner that led to her front door.

"Did you know about this?" she asked him, laughing. Blaine guessed Kurt had nodded his reply, then a tall thin man with hair styled high came into view, his face hidden by Mercedes as they hugged.

So that was Kurt, the man Blaine had blown off meeting in favor of the wrong Sebastian. Sam and Mercedes had tried to organize another dinner to introduce Blaine and Kurt, but none of them could find a day when all four were free. It must have been a sign from the universe. Just like it was a sign that Blaine would never find the man from the street again and was giving up in looking for that lightning bolt realization of true love.

Drinks were opened, the music was turned up and the talk started after that, marking the beginning of Mercedes' birthday party. Blaine gravitated to Tina and Mike, although he ended up looking around the group of people gathered for the party. Jake's brother Noah - who had loudly claimed his name was Puck, thank you very much - was standing with a very tall man and a short brunette, who seemed vaguely familiar to Blaine although he didn't know where he may know her from, who were holding hands and made a fantastic visual contrast in height. Blaine had once dated someone over 6 feet tall, and he imaged their height difference must have been similar to the couple on the other side of the apartment.

Mercedes tracked him down half an hour after she arrived. She grabbed his arm and towed him away from Tina and Mike for a few moments. "You helped him plan this didn't you?" she murmured in Blaine's ear. Blaine nodded slowly, not exactly knowing where she was going. Had she only acted pleased about the surprise to appease Sam, and was she here to ask him to get everyone to leave? His fears on behalf of his friend weren't realized, of course. Mercedes beamed. "Thank you." She threw one arm around Blaine's waist and gave him an embrace that was more squeeze than hug. "I imagine I've got you to thank that my apartment isn't, I don't know, covered in foam."

Blaine couldn't help the laugh that escaped. She did know her boyfriend. "It's my pleasure," he said as he returned her hug with equal tightness. "Happy birthday."

The brunette came over, threading her arm through Mercedes'. "You have to come show us what you and Kurt bought today," she declared, sparing a nod at Blaine and then dragging Mercedes away in a whirlwind.

"You want another drink?" Blaine asked Mike a little while later, having just finished his second beer and seeing that Mike was nursing an empty bottle as well. He had been half listening to the conversation Tina was having with Finn, who turned out to be Puck's tall friend and whose short whirlwind of a girlfriend's name was Rachel, but Mike turned his attention to Blaine and smiled.

"Thanks. Yeah."

Blaine headed off to the kitchen in search of the fridge and more drinks. The others he'd been standing with had full cups or untouched bottles so he didn't pause and ask if anyone else wanted him to bring something fresh. Sam had filled the fridge was bottle and cans of every type of drink known to man, covering the counters of Mercedes' kitchen in bottle of liqueurs that didn't need to be refrigerated. There was plenty to chose from but Blaine kept it simple, grabbing two beers from the fridge to replace his and Mike's.

He paused in the doorway leading back to the living room for a moment. Someone had thrown the bottle opener onto the small table Mercedes had placed just next to the door. Blaine held one bottle in his hand and wedged the other into the crook of his elbow, picking up the bottle opener and then prying each steel cap off. One ricocheted and hit the wall, the other Blaine kept in his hand.

Just as he was returning the bottle opener to where he'd found it, a joyous laugh caught his attention. It was obviously male but it was high, light and almost musical. It was infectious and Blaine couldn't help but smile even as he walked further into the room to give Mike his beer and away from the hypnotic laughter.

Finn's girlfriend Rachel ambushed him a little while after that, pulling him onto one of the couches and beginning a conversation without even introducing herself. The fact that Blaine knew who she was because he'd been talking to Finn was irrelevant.

"Mercedes told me that you're on Broadway," she said matter-of-factly. "Which musical are you starring in right now? I'm an understudy for Fanny Brice, but the girl playing lead keeps hinting she's pregnant, so I expect I'll be taking over soon."

Momentarily, Blaine was speechless. He hadn't heard much about Rachel before now, only a few throw-away comments Sam had made about how she took some time to get used to. "I'm in _A Chorus Line_," he answered a few moments later, remembering that she had asked about which musical he was currently starring in. He opened his mouth to tell her which part he was playing but Rachel interrupted.

"I saw that production about a month ago," she exclaimed, smiling and throwing out one hand to clasp Blaine's, "I think I remember you. You played Mike, right?" Blaine nodded, the feeling of pride that she recognized him welling up inside. "I thought you did very well but there were some things I would have changed had I been cast."

"Did you audition for a part then?" he asked, curiosity taking over. The _Funny Girl_ revival auditions had opened a few years ago so unless Rachel had been an understudy for years, she must have gotten the part recently. He didn't recognize her from Tisch or from previous auditions, but that could be because Rachel was older than him or went to NYADA instead.

She shook her head. "I auditioned for _Funny Girl_ in my first year of NYADA-," that answered Blaine's unasked question "-although they didn't want to give me such a big part until I'd finished my course and had more experience. And now that I'm there permanently, I'm sure they're just waiting for the perfect time to give me the lead."

Talking to someone in the business was refreshing. Blaine didn't have so many people to talk about his job to in more detail than was required for the standard how-was-work question. Mike was always there to talk with and Jake was still studying to be a choreographer, but it was nice to talk to a fellow performer. Rachel, it seemed, could talk for an Olympic medal, but Blaine wasn't bored or exasperated by the conversation.

It wasn't until Finn came to drag Rachel away that they broke up their conversation, which was now covering the advantages of living in New York over Ohio. It was such a small world that Blaine would meet someone who grew up in the town only a couple of hours away from his childhood home.

"I should introduce you to Kurt," Rachel informed him as Finn offered a hand. She took it and was practically yanked to her feet, stumbling ever so slightly but being caught in her much taller boyfriend's embrace. Blaine stood as well, smiling at his new friend. "He's in fashion but he loves Broadway. You two would have a lot to talk about."

Blaine only nodded, still thinking that he would never actually be introduced to Kurt. The universe had proved it was against their meeting, just as it was against him meeting his dream man. Blaine shook his head to clear that thought. It wasn't often thought about and he really wanted to keep it that way.

He had to cross the entire living room to find Tina and Mike, standing in a corner with Marley and Jake. Mike's arm was slung around Tina's shoulders and she was happily tucked into the curve of his arm. Jake and Marley had their fingers linked, Blaine even noting that Jake's thumb was stroking the back of Marley's palm in what could be a soothing or romantic gesture. He joined the two couples but didn't feel like a fifth wheel.

Blaine took a sip from the bottle he'd neglected while talking to Rachel and with one ear on the conversation his friends were having about which spirit was better, gin or rum. He looked over the room. Finn and Rachel had joined a group on the other side of the apartment, Rachel having linked her arm through the tall man who could only be Kurt. There was something so familiar about Kurt's silhouette-

Blaine's heart stopped. Or rather, his breathing stopped and his heartbeat was audible in his ears. Kurt had turned ever so slightly to the side and revealed his profile, smooth, defined and with an delicate nose with an upturned end.

He knew that face. He'd been dreaming about that face, that physique, that musical laugh that came from a musical voice, for weeks. He'd been putting it out of his mind recently, but Blaine knew as well as he knew his name that he'd never forget the features of his perfect man.

"Blaine," Tina said sharply. "Blaine, that hurts. What's wrong?"

Blaine had grabbed her wrist in his free hand and had squeezed, not even realizing he had needed to grab onto his friend to feel grounded. His eyes never left Kurt. Never left his mystery dream man.

Oh god, was he really seeing the man he had imagined as the man he'd spend the rest of his life with? Seeing him in the flesh, in a situation where he could conceivably go up and speak to him, introduce himself and then casually ask him out for coffee or dinner.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, it made sense how he knew Rachel. She had mentioned seeing him in_ A Chorus Line_ and the man he'd thought of as Sebastian had been sitting next to a girl who looked remarkably like Rachel.

Blaine couldn't move. His brain was whirling as if it were a spinning wheel set in motion, thoughts and memories being pulled together and emerging as single strand of thread. That thread holding all the instances where he could have met Kurt before today and the universe had simply said no. All the situations where they had missed meeting and Blaine's search for his perfect man would have been over.

Tina's talk from five weeks ago was forgotten. She had talked about giving someone the chance to be Blaine's true love because it wasn't going to be a lightning bolt moment of realization. Well, Blaine was having a lightning bolt moment of realization right now.

And he'd turned down meeting Kurt that first time because Unique had set him up with the man whose name had been on that envelope. Blaine could have met Kurt five weeks ago, could have had that date which started the rest of his life, instead of a date that did nothing but tear his dreams away without any care for the residual pain.

Although what was Kurt doing with an envelope with Sebastian Smythe's name on it anyway?

"Blaine," Tina said again, tugging her wrist out of Blaine's vice-like grip, "Why are you staring at that guy like he's got an extra head or something?"

He didn't turn to look at her. He was finally seeing his dream man again, had finally found him, and he didn't want to look away. What if he blinked and it turned out he was just imagining Kurt looked like his dream man?

"That's him," he said by way of explanation. He heard their noises of confusion and continued without waiting for them to ask him to elaborate. "That's the guy from the street. Who I thought was Sebastian. That's him."

"You're joking" was Mike's immediate response, but it was Marley who caused the room to quiet and Blaine finally to blink and look away from his dream man.

She squeaked loudly and said, or rather yelped, "What?"

Blaine's eyes were wide in horror as he looked at her. He knew that he wasn't that lucky that the group on the other side of the room hadn't heard that. He knew that they were all looking over them, wondering what had caused Marley to squeak so excitedly. He was still stuck in the same stance as before, facing where Kurt had been standing but with his head turned over his shoulder to look at Marley. That was an embarrassing first impression to give the man he was back to dreaming about spending his future with. He had wanted to appear calm and collected, maybe introducing himself casually and then slipping into conversation that they should date. Instead, he was standing in an embarrassing situation and the last thing he wanted was to go over to Kurt and say hi. He'd probably trip along the way which would only add insult to injury. .

To her credit, Marley looked horrified that she'd had such a loud reaction. Her hand was covering her mouth and her eyes spoke her apologies. There was a pause when no one spoke, all waiting with bated breath to see what was the consequence of gaining everyone's attention.

No one walked over immediately so Marley took her hand away from her mouth, leaning in to ask Blaine, "What are you going to do about it?"

Oh god, what was he going to do about it? "I- I don't know," he stammered. He wanted to look over at Kurt again, take another look to make sure that who he was really seeing was his dream man, but then that would gain their attention again and make him out to be an even bigger fool.

"You need to go and say hi," Marley insisted.

Jake was nodding, agreeing with his girlfriend. "Yeah man, you've been pining over this guy for months now. Don't let this pass you by."

"I've not been pining-" Blaine said indignantly, but he was cut off by Sam's arrival. The only reply his friends were giving him to his declaration that he'd hadn't really been pining over Kurt-dream-man were raised eyebrows and expressions of incredulity.

Sam slung his arm around Blaine's shoulders but he addressed his question to the other four in the group. "Everything okay here?"

Blaine started to nod, really not wanting any more attention drawn to this profoundly embarrassing situation, but his so-called friends - and he needed to evaluate those he called his friends after this - interjected.

"That guy over there," Marley said excitedly, "the one standing with Mercedes and her friends. Not the really tall one or Puck." Sam nodded. "That's Blaine mystery man from the street."

"Marley," Blaine whined but the damage was already done. Sam turned to him with delight in his eyes, the arm around his shoulders tightened and he nodded once.

"Okay," he declared, "Mercedes and I have wanted you two to meet for a while. You're meeting right now."

Sam started to move away, keeping his arm tight around Blaine's shoulders. Blaine didn't move for a moment, despite being pulled forward by Sam. He was taking deep breaths, steeling himself for what was to come. He wouldn't be introducing himself in a suave way, a way that would get Kurt to see him as anything other than the bumbling fool he was. But with Sam doing the introductions, he wouldn't have to stammer and stutter his way through saying his own name, and he might maintain what little dignity he had left.

_Okay_, Blaine thought and mentally squared his shoulders, _time to meet the man of your dreams Blaine Anderson._

"Blaine," Tina interjected, resting a hand on his bicep and distracting him just enough to make him listen, "remember what we talked about? Don't just fall for this guy and then get your heart broken because you're trying to make him be your true love. You-"

"I think it's a little late for that, babe," Mike said, although his voice was distant, almost like he was talking on a phone with a bad connection. Blaine had his eyes back to where Kurt was standing and his peripheral vision had gone blank at the realization that Kurt still looked like his dream man.

The walk across the living room seemed to take ages, as long as it took Frodo and Sam to cross Middle Earth to reach Mordor. All the while, Blaine was turning phrases over in his head, trying to chose the best one to say to Kurt. He couldn't, for example, announce that Kurt could stop looking because Blaine was the man he'd been searching for all along.

Oh god, what if Kurt didn't like him? Blaine doubted he'd remember him, and he actually didn't want Kurt to remember him. He had been tired and he had looked it, sweaty from a day's gruelling rehearsal and he'd acted like he hadn't even had control of his limbs. It wasn't the best first impression: and as the second time Blaine would meet Kurt involved him being dragged across the room by a mutual friend, that was hardly the impression he wanted Kurt to have.

Then another thought sprung to mind. What if Kurt was dating? If he did, by some miracle, like Blaine and was completely unavailable because he was in a loving, long term relationship? But no, Blaine remembered, Kurt had been described by Mercedes as 'despairingly single'.

Maybe he shouldn't be thinking like this. Tina had told him weeks ago that jumping head first into relationships would only leave him back where he started. Blaine was walking across the room with the belief that he had once again found the man of his dreams. That was nothing if not diving in with no consequence of how deep the bottom of the pool was.

But he found he didn't care. Blaine wanted nothing more than to have that moment of infatuation, that lightning bolt of realization that this man was the one. He watched as the distance between him and Kurt got smaller and smaller, and he waited with bated breath to see if the moment he'd wanted for years now was actually going to happen.

Logical thinking was a way of the past.

They were across the room now, a journey that had felt like days at the start and now seemed like he'd flown across the distance in a ship that traveled at the speed of light. He was so close to Kurt now, just Sam introducing him and then he could see those eyes up close, could see his lips curve into a smile and maybe, if he was lucky, get to find out if they were as soft as they looked.

"Oh, Blaine," Mercedes said happily. Sam withdrew his arm and for a brief moment, and Blaine felt like he was swaying. Could he even stay upright in front of his dream man without something, anything, to ground him?

The others she was with turned to face Blaine and Sam, Rachel smiling widely at her new friend although Blaine didn't acknowledge it. He couldn't get his eyes to leave Kurt's face. God, his eyes were mesmerizing.

"I think the only person you haven't met is Kurt," Mercedes was saying. Again, it sounded like she was speaking through a call with bad service. "Kurt, this is Blaine. We've been trying to introduce you guys for weeks. At least I can say it happened on my birthday."

Kurt smiled and Blaine felt his heart lift. He offered a hand, which Blaine took and felt his soft hands and the firm grip of his fingers. He had remembered so much of his dream man's physique in such great detail. He had forgotten the sheer number of colors in his eyes but not their intrigue or beauty. He had remembered the soft looking skin on his face, his pale lips that looking so inviting and his hair swept up and off his forehead in a style that complemented Kurt's physique so well.

"It's nice to meet you, Blaine," Kurt said in a voice that was kept low enough that it was meant for Blaine's ears only. Perhaps Sam and Mercedes heard it too, but Blaine didn't think about his audience.

The bundle of nerves that was his stomach was tighter than ever and he was probably breathing so hard it was like he was hyperventilating. The tiny voice of rationality left in Blaine's mind told him that he was just smiling warmly at Kurt and enjoying their introduction, but the majority of Blaine's conscious mind was focused on the fact that this must be that lightning bolt Tina was saying didn't exist. He'd never felt so attracted to someone in a way that was more than the physical.

He wanted all of Kurt. He'd dreamt about sharing his life with the dream man and had the ups and downs of never being able to find the man of his dreams. Now that he had him, Blaine wanted everything. From the arguments about which television show to watch first - because Blaine could imagine that they shared a common interest in some shows but not in others - to lying together on cold Sunday mornings as they refused to get out of bed to the passionate nights of sex that they would have.

So Blaine made sure that his answering smile was warm and he squeezed Kurt's hand as they shook. "It's nice to finally meet you too, Kurt."

Finally.

* * *

Their first date was supposed to be simple. Kurt had suggested they meet up for coffee the next day and Blaine had jumped at the chance. Even as he was handing Kurt his phone, Blaine was planning his outfit and calculating what was the latest he'd need to leave the date if he wanted to get to the theater on time.

That calculation had proved most useful because once he and Kurt met, they talked without any sign of stopping. Blaine had arrived first but had nervously paced up and down the sidewalk just outside the door. Kurt had called his name when he'd arrived and Blaine had been shocked into silence at the beauty of the man he was on a date with.

Then he'd sunken into a stupor as Kurt's sweet personality had shone through in what he was saying. He worked in fashion and Kurt's passion for his job was palpable, and the way his face lit up when he talked about something he enjoyed was something Blaine wanted to see over and over.

They'd made their way through two coffees each and had shared two muffins, one banana nut and one raspberry and white chocolate, before another customer loudly stating the time to whoever they were on the phone to had forced Blaine into the present. He'd been so lost in his and Kurt's conversation that if he didn't leave right then, he'd be late for tonight's performance.

Kurt's smile had been tinged with disappointment but he'd eagerly agreed to a second date the following Monday.

Their second date had started a couple's habit of taking pictures of the two of them as they shared ice creams and fresh pretzels. They were enjoying the ambiance of a carnival that had set up their rides just on the outskirts of the city, something Jake had mentioned offhand to Unique when looking for ideas for a new place to take Marley. Blaine had seized that idea with both hands, and Kurt's laugh of delight when he saw where they were headed brought a wide smile to his face.

Blaine didn't know which of them laughed the louder when they actually started walking around the carnival, which of them screamed in delight with each twist and turn of the rollercoasters, or which of them ended up dragging the other into the photobooth to snap photo after photo of each of them. The booth was small, a red privacy curtain that may have once been velvet but was now worn down and threadbare and one of the stools that could be wound up and down to adjust the height.

Kurt had pushed Blaine onto the seat and perched on one of Blaine's thighs for the first picture. Blaine wrapped both arms around Kurt's slim waist to keep him steady, loving the feel of Kurt pressed against his chest and his weight on his leg, but their height difference was so pronounced in that position that the first picture was laughable. They'd swapped for the second shot and Blaine found that he loved the feeling of sitting on Kurt's leg just as much as he'd enjoyed it the other way around.

The other five pictures were more successful now that Blaine was visible in the picture. All six pictures had both of them smiling with wide grins, Blaine's all teeth and Kurt's making his eyes crinkle and the hint of dimples on his cheek.

Blaine had taken half while Kurt had made sure to have the first photo with Blaine straining to be visible fully in the shot. He'd let Kurt have that one, because it was the last one that was his favorite. His cheek had been pressed against Kurt's, his grin was wide and cheesy and Kurt's smile was the only one captured where he'd smiled and showed teeth. The camera had flashed earlier than expected, so the photograph was more of a candid moment than a posed picture. Blaine had cast his eyes over Kurt's smiling face for a long time before he took his phone out to take a photo of the photo, making it his background despite Tina's fond teasing the next day.

Kurt had to cancel their third date, an early dinner at a restaurant close to where the theater was. He'd called Blaine with apologies in his voice that barely hid the panic, a disaster at work as the servers that hosted the site crashed leaving over half of their online articles corrupted and needing rebuilding.

After the show had ended and Blaine had bid his castmates goodnight, he'd made his way to a late-night deli and bought food. He'd bought a cheesecake, because Kurt had mentioned how much he loved cheesecakes, and two bowls of pumpkin soup, as well as some slices of wholemeal bread. He'd made his way to Kurt's apartment with the supplies, and the look of gratitude in Kurt's eyes had been worth the journey in the opposite direction from his own apartment.

"You are the best boyfriend ever," Kurt had said, and Blaine's heart had soared. They hadn't used the word 'boyfriend' before, even though Blaine had thought of Kurt as his boyfriend from the moment they planned their second date to the carnival.

Kurt had taken the food off his hands, placed the two plastic bags on the kitchen counter closest to the front door and then thrown his arms around Blaine in an embrace that Blaine felt himself sinking into. He was just smaller than Kurt that he could tuck his head in the crook of Kurt's neck, comfortably resting on his shoulder and being completely surrounded by him.

Kurt had pulled his head away while keeping his arms around Blaine's shoulders, one thumb rubbing ever so lightly against the seam in Blaine's polo shirt. His smile was warm and conveyed his appreciation that Blaine had made the trek with supplies to feed the regularly overworked worker ant that Kurt had described himself as.

Blaine had taken charge, searching through Kurt's kitchen to find ceramic bowls and heating up the soup that had gone cold despite the warmth of the evening. Kurt had sat in one of the counter chairs, leaning on the island the separated the kitchen from his dining nook that barely held the table and four chairs Kurt had placed there. It was midnight before they sat down on the couch in the living room, soup bowls in their hands and a plate with the bread balancing on one of the cushions in between them. They'd eaten in comfortable silence, and when Kurt took a bite of the cheesecake, he'd let out a moan of appreciation that had Blaine's heart beating just that much faster. It was like a Pavlovian response.

They'd kissed for the first time that night too, Kurt stopping Blaine as he left the apartment at gone one o'clock, resting a hand on Blaine's forearm and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. A beautiful pink flush had crept up to stain Kurt's cheek, making them rosy, and Blaine added that look to his ever-growing list of things he wanted to see on Kurt again.

Blaine had taken Kurt's hand and leant forward to give a kiss of his own, although this time Blaine pressed his lips against Kurt's. He heard the gasp of surprise that Kurt gave and for a very brief moment, he panicked that kissing him was the worst thing to do. But then Kurt relaxed into the kiss, pressing back and effectively taking control, squeezing Blaine's forearm from where he hadn't let go.

Blaine had sat in the back of the cab - it was expensive but Blaine didn't want to sit in an empty train on a long journey home - and could feel the tingle of Kurt's kiss all the way back to his apartment. He stared out of the window and gazed unseeingly at the sidewalk passing him by, at the blur that was the people standing still in the warm summer evening. His thoughts were fixed on Kurt and on how wrong Tina had been. He thought of Kurt and his entire being lifted. When he'd shaken his hand, meeting his dream man properly for the first time, Blaine knew that he'd fallen hard and fast and he was still falling. There was no need to give his love to someone rather than look for love at first sight: he'd already found it.

* * *

"Wait, sorry," Blaine panted as he ran up the steps to Kurt's building, talking to the older lady who'd just been entering the building before him. She held the door ajar but stood in the doorway and raised an eyebrow at him. "My boyfriend lives in this building," he explained, and when she continued to look suspicious, he elaborated, "Kurt Hummel? Lives in 206?"

Now she smiled and opened the door to allow Blaine in. It was mid-September, almost two months since he and Kurt had met, and the weather had turned from the beautiful summer days to the threat of a harsh winter. At least the colors of the leaves on the trees were starting to turn into what Kurt described as some of the best color schemes nature had to offer. Blaine had hurried from the nearest subway station to Kurt's building, eager to surprise his boyfriend by dragging him from the hole he'd built for himself for recuperate from the recently finished New York Fashion Week. Blaine hadn't been looking forward to waiting outside the building in the cold so he ran the last few steps to the doors when he'd spotted Kurt's neighbor walking inside.

"You're Kurt's boyfriend?" she asked as they headed toward the elevator. It was only one floor up but Blaine was panting from the rushed walk from the station and the run for the last few steps before reaching the building. He nodded to answer her question and she smiled, looking like she barely resisted cooing. "I see him sometimes in the mornings before work, and he's always smiling now. I'm guessing that's because of you."

Blaine couldn't help but duck his head and smile. He'd been happier lately, lighter and far more like his optimistic and energetic old self ever since he'd abandoned the search for his dream man to find him again and see that he was even more perfect than he imagined.

"Thank you," he replied as the elevator arrived. He gestured to the open elevator, generic elevator music audible from the crackly speakers, and the woman nodded her head in thanks before stepping forward first. She pressed floor three and Blaine quickly pressed floor two before the doors slid shut.

It was a quick journey and the doors slowly slid open as they arrived on Kurt's floor. "Tell Kurt Angela says hi," she called after Blaine as he left the elevator and the tacky music behind. He turned his head to nod and say that he would, managing to give her a parting smile before the doors slid shut.

Blaine had made this journey many times since he and Kurt had been dating and could walk down the hallway without checking the apartment numbers until he reached number 6. It wasn't too far from the elevator but the first time he'd come to Kurt's apartment alone, Blaine had taken the right hallway instead of the left and had circled the entire floor before realizing his mistake.

As he approached the door, Blaine's ears picked up the muffled sound of music. An old song by today's music standards but one that Blaine had listened to many times over when it had been released was playing. He'd even sung it with the Warblers one time, although it hadn't made it into their competition repertoire.

Except, Blaine didn't just hear the muffled sounds of Katy Perry and the music. He leaned closer to the door, bracing one hand on the wooden doorframe, and heard Kurt's high musical voice singing along. Loudly and enthusiastically.

Blaine's heart expanded with the sheer adorableness that was his boyfriend. There really wasn't any other word for it. Blaine had done this exact thing many times in the past, especially when Tina was out of the apartment at college or on a date with Mike. He hated to ruin the moment for Kurt, but more than anything Blaine wanted to press a kiss to Kurt's lips and wrap him up in a hug.

He knocked twice on the door and the music abruptly shut off. Now Blaine heard very little, although the shuffling of sock-covered feet as they ran to the door became audible just moments before the door was opened and a rosy-cheeked Kurt came into view.

"Blaine," he said happily, smiling a wide grin that showed all his teeth, "this is- what are you doing here?"

Blaine took a moment before answering, taking Kurt's hands in his own and leaning forward to kiss him. Kurt smiled into the kiss, breaking apart only to tug Blaine into the apartment and close the door. He wrapped his arms around Blaine's neck and went for another kiss, but although Blaine responded by wrapping his own arms around Kurt's waist, he moved his head away from the kiss.

"I came to take you out to lunch," he explained, answering the earlier question before curiosity got the better of him. He already knew the answer to his next question, but Blaine wanted it confirmed. "Where you just singing_ Teenage Dream_?"

The red on Kurt's cheeks deepened as if on cue. He didn't remove his hands but he dropped his gaze to the floor. "No?" he asked rather than said, the inflection of his voice at the end of his sentence obvious.

Blaine chuckled and pressed a kiss to Kurt's cheekbone. "And I thought you said that my obsession with pop music should stay a guilty pleasure only," he teased, chuckling again as the blush deepened even further.

To his credit, and not unexpected at all, Kurt looked back at Blaine and spoke as if his cheeks weren't on fire. "That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the old classics," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "And besides, if we'd met as teenagers, then you'd have been my teenage dream."

Blaine stepped out of Kurt's embrace and walked over to the dock on the other side of the living room. Kurt had only paused the music so Blaine let his finger hover over the play button. He looked over his shoulder at Kurt, offering a small smile and then pressed play.

Kurt had stopped it just after the chorus, something Blaine was actually a little ashamed to admit about how well he knew this particular song. He let the first few lyrics pass him by as he sauntered back to Kurt, who still stood at the door with a blush on his cheeks.

"_Got a motel and built a fort out of sheets_," Blaine sang to Kurt, who immediately smiled despite himself. Blaine took his hands again and walked backwards until they stood in the middle of the living room, all the while still singing the lyrics to a song he knew backwards. "_I finally found you. My missing puzzle piece. I'm complete._"

The song continued but Blaine stopped, letting the music play as he looked at Kurt expectantly. He didn't open his mouth to continue singing, so as it approached the chorus again, Blaine spoke loud enough to be heard over the music. "Sing with me, Kurt!"

Blaine picked up the chorus, singing a little quieter than before and still gazing at his beautiful boyfriend with intent. Kurt closed his eyes, dropped his forehead to rest on Blaine's shoulder for just a moment and then joined in.

"_My heart stops,_" they sang together, Kurt lifting his head and opening his eyes to catch Blaine's gaze, "_when you look at me._"

Oh, how Blaine was in love. He'd fallen hard and he'd fallen fast and never before had he known it was so worth it. Everything he'd been dreaming about when he'd first bumped into Kurt was a possibility, from the house in the suburbs to moving out of the city when they were old and wanting nothing more than to take long beach walks in the chilly Atlantic air. So he'd had to get through searching for the wrong man before he'd finally found Kurt, as well as momentarily giving up his search for that perfect man after the date-that-missed. It was all worth it to be standing here holding Kurt's hands and thinking about how much he loved him.

The song stopped and the opening notes to Pink's Perfect sounded. Kurt's blush returned and he darted to the iPod to turn off the music once and for all.

"Is that a playlist with music just from our teenage years?" Blaine asked as Kurt bustled around the room, putting his iPod away and grabbing a few envelopes here and there to reorganize.

Kurt looked up from his stack of envelopes to raise an eyebrow in Blaine's direction, whose only reply was another blinding smile. "I believe you promised me lunch." Blaine nodded as he did want to treat Kurt after the hell he'd put himself through during the Fashion Week.

Kurt held up the envelopes and shook them to gain Blaine's attention. "I just need to mail these before we go anywhere," he added. Blaine held out his hands and took the envelopes from Kurt, allowing him to walk into his bedroom and rifle through his closet to find the perfect shoes for his outfit. He'd been wearing tight grey pants and a grey and white pinstripe shirt before he walked into the room, and he came out with a blue blazer complete with white piping, dark grey Oxfords and a scarf tied around his neck that was tucked into the open collar of his shirt.

Blaine's eyes swept up and down Kurt's body, so toned and perfectly accented in whatever he wore. Kurt's legs were the focus of his gaze, the jeans he was wearing fitting perfectly over Kurt's thighs. He stared for a few moments and then shook his head to clear the haze of lust. He had an extremely attractive boyfriend as well, not just Blaine's dream man for his personality alone. Blaine could hardly help admiring.

The smirk on Kurt's lips told Blaine that he knew where Blaine's eyes had been only moments before. Blaine quickly kissed Kurt as they left the apartment, offering a shrug as a wordless explanation and twining their fingers together so that they held hands as they walked.

One of the envelopes that Kurt had reclaimed in the elevator dropped out of the pile just as Kurt pushed open the door to the chilly outside world. Blaine stopped, bent down and scooped the dropped envelope up in his hands.

He turned it over, glancing at the name on the front as he said, "Kurt, you drop-"

His words stuck in his throat. His mouth, opened from what he'd been saying, was gaping wide. Typed on the envelope in dark lettering was the name Sebastian Smythe. Blaine blinked once, twice, but each time he opened his eyes the name that he knew so well stared back at him.

Blaine's memory sparked and he was thrown back nearly six months ago to when he first bumped into Kurt in the streets near his work. He'd picked up a fallen envelope then and had handed it back to Kurt after seeing the name written on the front. What he'd remembered from that night was that it was an envelope but now he was thrown back into his memory, Blaine realized that never once did he see that the envelope was open. It had been sealed, just like this one was, and he had just chosen to remember that the envelope had been open.

If he'd remembered correctly that the envelope had been sealed, then he probably would have realized the mail was outgoing and his dream man hadn't been named Sebastian Smythe. They say that everyone has twenty-twenty vision with hindsight. He could have kicked himself for that false memory, if it hadn't all worked out in the end.

"Blaine?" Kurt asked, his voice low and filled with worry and care. "Are you okay?"

Blaine blinked and was brought back to the present in an instant. He held out the envelope, which Kurt took and then scoffed at the name. Blaine didn't even need to ask; Kurt began his explanation for his reaction as he returned the envelope to his pile.

"I really don't like that guy," he said, taking Blaine's hand once again and continuing the journey down the steps to the sidewalk, "but he works for the firm who does the advertising, so I'm the lucky one who has to deal with him."

Recalling his date with Sebastian and the personality filled with self-assurance he'd been confronted with, Blaine knew what Kurt must be seeing when he worked with Sebastian. He was probably the epitome of arrogant ad-exec, a stereotypical view that was often proven true.

Kurt mumbled insults as they walked hand in hand down the road, mentioning Sebastian's arrogance, his habit of flirting with everyone just to get his way and how his face resembled a meerkat on most days. Blaine let him talk for a few minutes but as soon as they reached the end of the block, he stopped walking and pulled Kurt closer.

"Stop worrying about Sebastian," Blaine said when Kurt looked up from wherever he'd had his eyes fixed during his rant. The words that Blaine spoke were paraphrased words that he'd heard a hundred times over the spring and summer months, words that he'd never listened to before now. At least Kurt would listen, with the situation being professional with nothing personal about it. "We'll go to lunch now," Blaine stroked his thumb over Kurt's ever-so-soft knuckles as he spoke, "and I may have gotten the night off and managed to find us two tickets for tonight's showing of _Wicked_-"

He let the sentence trail off and as if on cue, Kurt gasped with delight. It was his all-time favorite musical, and even though Blaine had taken Kurt before with tickets that Blaine at least could never afford if one of Blaine's friends from Tisch wasn't in the cast, Kurt always left the theater wishing he could see it again.

Kurt let go of Blaine's hand, cupped the back of his neck and brought their lips together. Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist once more, grabbing a handful of his blazer to push them just that little bit closer. He could never have enough of his boyfriend, both physically and emotionally.

"You are perfect," Kurt said matter-of-factly once he pulled away from their kiss.

Blaine couldn't help but laugh because Kurt had voiced exactly what he'd been thinking. Although Blaine didn't think that Kurt was thinking about it in the same way he was. Kurt really was perfect. Every time Blaine had dreamed about his perfect man and the future they would share together, he hadn't even considered some of the finer details that made relationships work. Personality quirks that made him smile, gestures of affection that were appreciated by both parties and the intimate moments that they would share with each other and no one else. With every day he spent with Kurt, getting to know him better and falling more in love with him, Blaine saw all those finer details his dreams had omitted and knew that with Kurt, his future would be exactly as imagined.

He ran his hands up Kurt's back and then down again to rest them just over the curve of Kurt's hips. Blaine tightened his arms to bring them closer still, close enough that he felt the tease of body heat making his skin tingle. He never wanted to give this beautiful man - in body and soul - up. He would do anything to have this moment last forever.

"So are you," he replied with the tone of sincerity obvious in his voice.

Blaine wanted to be able to say that for years to come. In his heart of hearts, he knew that he would be able to look into Kurt's eyes and tell him that he loved him, that he was perfect, for many years to come. Blaine had known that he'd met his dream man that day in the street. He might have been initially looking in the wrong direction, but he'd been led to the right man eventually.

Blaine could close his eyes now and pretend he was thirteen again, sitting on his bed in his old room back in Ohio with his dreams taking him places he'd never thought he'd get to. Thirteen-year-old Blaine would always picture someone with strong arms, a wide smile and the ability to make him laugh as well as being the most beautiful on the scale of one to a hundred. He was probably picturing Kurt without knowing it, and only now that he'd finally met Kurt could Blaine see how well the dreams fit into the reality he was living.

Now he could put a face to his childhood dreams, and cross 'finding his true love' off his bucket list. Because Blaine knew that this was it, he'd found his true love. There was no need to carry on searching; he'd had his moment of realization of true love, the one Tina had said would never come, and found his dream man staring across the room right back at him.

They'd be seventy and arguing about which musical revival was the better, taking walks in the sunlight and then falling asleep in each other's arms on the couch as soon as they got home, making each other mugs of hot chocolate every night even though they'd just finished the last mug. And Blaine couldn't wait for that.

He'd take grey hairs appearing in his curls until they were dominant over the black color he had had all his life. He'd take wrinkles appearing on Kurt's face, first around his eyes where he smiled and then all over. He'd take it because he'd be there to kiss each and every place on Kurt until he didn't think he was getting old anymore, and he'd accept the same treatment from Kurt.

"Come on," Kurt's voice, filled with mirth, broke through Blaine's reverie. He blinked twice before he could focus enough to see that they'd walked three blocks without saying two words to break their comfortable silence.

"You buy me lunch now," Kurt continued to say, jerking his head to the left, asking if Blaine wanted to go to their favorite deli that was down that street or if they wanted to find a new restaurant a little further from Kurt's apartment, "and carry on telling me how perfect you think I am."

Blaine smiled. He really didn't need to be asked twice about that.

* * *

_"We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place."_  
_- Erin Morgenstern,The Night Circus._

* * *

_Author's note: Again, the link to winsomela's wonderful art is here: [winsomela] . [tumblr] . [c o m] [/] post [/] 60076620701 [/] for-amys-wonderful-fic-my-fantasy-is-my_

_(Sorry for the mess of a link but you know how this site is!) __Do leave her some love as well, because her artwork is truly amazing._

_And thank you so much for reading!_


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